When I was making this film, I didn't consider ideas about what is true and what are the basic elements of storytelling.

I often confused documentary with fiction, which in itself became my influence. How have they influenced my approach to filmmaking? I think I hadn't seen many very interesting or believable documentaries before making this. I gave people lots of room to reimagine the people they were supposedly representing, which in this case were The Beatles and Yoko Ono. Well, creating this piece involved a lot of play. Grapefruit is not a documentary, but it is a document of sorts. I wanted to see how different individuals would choose to play out an iconic story. The subject is lesbian reception of popular culture, and it's also how pop culture kind of sits inside people's memories. Per Dougherty: “It is not about lesbians, it is lesbian.” Shot on videotape, the episodes-a reenactment of Ono’s seminal “Cut Piece,” the “Bed-In” with Lennon, Harrison waxing over Buddhist philosophy while strumming an unplugged electric guitar-retain the feel of a home movie while simultaneously opening up a crucial space in history for lesbians where they’re no longer on the margins.

Reimagining The Beatles as four women (including a young Susie Bright as John Lennon), Grapefruit restages events leading up to the band’s breakup at the end of the 1960s, culled from Yoko Ono’s memoirs. It screens on Sunday, April 26, the final day of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real series. Director Cecilia Dougherty reimagines famous pop-culture icons with lesbians at the center in her new film, Grapefruit.

Zipper Mouth by Laurie Weeks