Documentary on 'Runway' winner Jay McCarroll debuts tonight

A year and a half after he became Project Runway’s first winner, Jay McCarroll had approximately 11 minutes to save his career. That’s how long a show at New York’s Fashion Week lasts, and when he debuted his first post-win collection there in September 2006… well, things got messy: A model suffered a wardrobe malfunction and none of the purchased pieces reached their buyer. But Jay bounced back. Today he’s teaching at Philadelphia University, has a new line on QVC ("It’s comfortable but still super funky!" he reports) and is the subject of Eleven Minutes, a documentary by filmmakers Michael Selditch and Rob Tate which has its West Coast debut tonight at Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, at the same time as the season premiere of Project Runway, Season 5 ("Ironic isn’t it?" cracks McCarroll). "It’s kind of anti-Bravo branded," says Tate of the doc, which chronicles nearly every moment leading to that notorious showing.  "That’s the irony," explains Selditch. "Part of the story is Jay’s struggle to be taken seriously as a fashion designer and not just a reality TV star. But people pigeonhole him into, ‘Oh, sing and dance, be funny!’" True to form, McCarroll is ready with a quip: "We wanted to show how much work it really is. It’s so much more than ‘Christian Siriano’s fierce!’"