When Linda, an outspoken lesbian psychotherapist, decided that George, a bulldozer-driving transsexual, was the woman for her, Two Brides and a Scalpel: Diary of a Lesbian Marriage was born.

Directed and produced by Vancouver-based Mark Achbar (Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media), the video was shot over a two-year period by the subjects and covers what the media touted as the first lesbian marriage in Canadian history, a graphic sex change operation, and the daily lives and most intimate moments of a relationship generally hidden behind the iron curtain of societal taboo.

At the same time Achbar started thinking about experimenting with the video diary technique – a process originated by the bbc, whereby a camera and as much tape as necessary is given to subjects to shoot their story at will – his neighbor Linda announced to him that she was moving to Nanaimo to marry George – a story that would undoubtedly make for the perfect video diary.

‘It’s a very intimate portrait. They were encouraged to do diary entries as one might sit down and write, but in this case they would sit down with the camera and talk about what was going on,’ says Achbar, who along with editor Jennifer Abbot (A Cow at my Table) would look at the rushes throughout the process to help guide the shooting.

Deviating from the traditional form of the video diary, however, Achbar intercuts archival elements, which include footage from sexploitation filmmaker Doris Wishman’s Let Me Die a Woman (1978), some old National Film Board docs and home movies from friends, to illustrate different points about gender roles.

‘The motivation is really education, that’s why they’re [Linda and Georgie] putting themselves on the line – they want to demystify their own sexuality, gender identity and sexual orientation,’ says Achbar, adding: ‘I think I was more of a catalyst to this film in putting a production team together to package material that isn’t necessarily professionally shot and raising the legitimacy of that imagery and that voice.’

Budgeted at $60,000, raised through the Canada Council and the BC Arts Council, Two Brides, which will make its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival, has yet to attach a broadcaster.

‘The biggest challenge,’ says Achbar, ‘was sticking with the idea with no financial support and believing in it after being rejected by broadcasters who couldn’t accept that I couldn’t guarantee a delivery date because it was impossible to know when the story would end.’

And in another move that might detract investors, Achbar gave the diarists veto power over any of the footage they shot of themselves.

‘If you’re going to ask people who are not professionals and don’t have a sense of the power of the media as clearly as media makers do to feel free to shoot everything, I think they deserve the right to protect themselves.’

Meantime, Achbar is in the third year of development on The Corporation, a $2-million, four-hour doc series on the nature, evolution and impact of modern business corporations. On the brink of inking a coprod deal with the bbc and the nfb, he’s lined up five Canadian broadcasters, with tvontario at the helm.