Since her early childhood in the Netherlands, Freida Belinfante loved music and dreamed of being the conductor of an orchestra. However, while she displayed tremendous musical talent early on, the notion of a woman directing an orchestra in the early 1930s was unheard of, and she had a difficult time breaking the class ceiling of the classical musical establishment. Belinfante was also half-Jewish, and the onset of WWII put her life in peril. She became an active member of the anti-Nazi resistance after Germany invaded her homeland, and she risked death on a number of occasions before emigrating to the U.S. Settling in California, Belinfante was finally able to realize her dream as the director of the Orange County Philharmonic. But Belinfante was also a lesbian, and when her lifestyle and political beliefs became public knowledge, she was fired, and it was decades before she found another chance to conduct. But I Was A Girl: The Story of Freida Belinfante examines her tumultuous life and times, mixing newsreel footage with contemporary material. The film was financed in part by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and it was enthusiastically received in its screening at the 2000 Boston Gay/Lesbian Film Festival.