Edina Student Filming Bullying Documentary

Any way you cut it, running for middle school student council can be a difficult, stressful experience. For Alec Fischer, that stress was compounded by seeing gay slurs written across his posters in the run-up to the election.

It was nothing new for Fischer. He was bullied throughout middle school, and saw many of his friends get bullied as well. At the time, he wasn’t sure how to make sense of it all.

"When I was being bullied, I felt like this was something I had to deal with," he said.

Earlier this year, Fischer found a way to connect his experiences with bullying and his love of filmmaking with a documentary film titled Minnesota Nice? Fischer said it "calls for student awareness to the issue [of bullying] and lets students know that their voice can make a difference."

The film has served as a vehicle to spread the message to kids facing similar problems that they don't have to feel alone, depressed or even consider suicide. So far, he’s been able to spread his message: He’s done an interview with WCCO radio, Kare 11 has contacted him about running a story and Carleton College is interested in him showing his film to students.

When he and his friends were being bullied, he said, a major way they coped was by talking to each other, which he cited as another influence in his making of the film.

"If I could have this much influence just by talking and listening [to my friends], what kind of influence will this film have on people who have no one to talk to?” Fischer said.

While much of the film focuses on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) students who are bullied, Fischer says that he’s just as concerned about other kinds of bullying as well, from bullying based on weight to race to social standing.

"In reality, you recognize huge problems [with all kinds of bullying] that we still have to deal with as a society," he said.

The film’s focus on GLBT bullying is due to the number of recent suicides in Minnesota due to anti-gay bullying.

Fischer plans on premiering the movie on Thursday, May 31 at the Edina Performing Arts Center at . He also hopes to have a theatrical debut at the "sometime in June," but first needs to secure the funding he needs to rent out the theater.

A donation box will be available at the EPAC premiere and Fischer is working with online funding platform Kickstarter to provide the $1,000 needed to cover post-production costs and renting a theater for the film's big debut.

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