It may look like a reality show and talk like a reality show, but “The Real World” it ain’t.

Familiar conflicts and entertaining dialogue make the documentary “Queer Prom,” screened Monday at Tinseltown as part of the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, feel honest without indulging too heavily in saccharine feel-good moments or worse, slow-motion montages.

Directed by Nicky Forsman, who also directs the OUTTV series “Don’t Quit Your Gay Job,” the documentary follows a group of LGBT youth at the Qmunity GAB Youth Centre as they attempt to organize the annual Queer Prom: a homophobia-free event for queer 13-to-25-year-olds who may have graduated or are still in high school or college. Ultimately the event is a success, though the group doesn’t make it through unscathed.

TV Producers take note: Queer Prom is what happens when you put quip-heavy personalities in a meeting room deemed a furnace and tell them to plan a large-scale event. It’s also one of the profound secrets of people-based documentary filmmaking: when shit gets hot, the raised crankiness levels contribute to some really good dialogue.

“Nobody cares about fucking mocktails,” uttered by decorating committee member Taylor after an argument with GAB staff over the placement of Prom mocktail selection on that meeting’s agenda, was a laugh-winner, “It’s one of the top 4 or 5 best things ever. It’s pretty much better than the renaissance,” also care of Taylor, was another.

The list goes on, and it was a nice surprise Forsman avoided focusing on the teenage cultural obsession of drama, or should we say, da-rah-mahhhh, in favour of showing how humourously and amicably a group of youth interested in making a difference can work through problems without killing each other – though, threats are made. Friendships are tested during the film but are always resilient; every combatant inevitably reconciles over a fist bump with the other, in stark contrast to other documentary-style productions in North America that thrive on unresolved conflict (hello again, MTV).

Queer Prom reveals that the queer youth in Vancouver are, in a word, amazing, and can take care of each other in ways given families simply can’t, or worse, won’t.

To describe the documentary in one word would be the same way a GAB staff member describes Queer Prom, the event, at the end of the film: important.

Jeff Lawrence is a contributor to Sad Mag and V-Rag magazines.