I like to use [“I Was Born This Way”] as an example for students,” Junge tells me over cups of black coffee and slices of Pink Lady apples at his kitchen table in Boulder. “A lot of people think documentary filmmakers have this burning story that’s in their heart.”

Occasionally, he admits, there are those, but “I don’t think I’ve had one.” Instead, “films come out of an opportunity.”

That’s how Academy Award-winning Boulder-based director Daniel Junge came across Carl Bean—the subject of the his latest documentary: I Was Born This Way.

Premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier this year, I Was Born This Way now comes to the 48th Denver Film Festival. For Boulder Reporting Lab, I spoke with Junge about the movie, the rediscovery of Bean’s gay liberation anthem, and the state of filmmaking in Boulder.

“We don’t think of [Boulder] as a [filmmaking] hub, but it is — especially in documentary,” he says. “Some of that is by virtue of the fact that we have Louie Psihoyos living here. We got Paula [DuPré Pesmen], Jeff [Orlowski-Yang], me, Davis Coombe [who edited ‘I Was Born This Way’]. … I can’t say there’s something in the water here, there just happens to be a collection of individuals who have decided to live here that are making world-class stuff.”

My full interview with Junge can be found at BoulderReportingLab.org.

Tonight’s screening at the Denver Botanic Gardens (currently on standby) includes a pre-film reception in the Freyer Newman Center atrium and a post-film Q&A with director Daniel Junge, film participant Beatitude Bishop Zach Jones, producer Wellington Love and executive producer Cori Robinson, moderated by journalist Lisa Kennedy.