Narratives about those crossing the gender spectrum, in whatever capacity, are just beginning to enter mainstream culture. I often find myself wanting to see more well-rounded, and dare I say happy portrayals of non-gender conforming people on screen. Tomboy, a French film by Director Céline Sciamma, does not paint a wholly a rosy picture, but it does portray the young child protagonist with compassion and sincerity.
Ten year old Laure is mistaken for a boy when she moves to a new town over summer break. She embraces it fully, going by the name Michael, taking her shirt off, and even fashioning a makeshift packy out of Play-Doh. The film delves into the parentless world of children on summer vacation very well. The kids are fully fleshed out characters that are quite adorable and smart, even as they are still juvenile and innocent.
One of Thursday night’s screenings for the PLGFF was Gun Hill Road by writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green. The film opens with Enrique, a husband and father, returning home to the Bronx after three years in prison. During his absence he finds that the family he used to know has changed. Not only has his wife, Angela, had an affair with another man but his teenage son, Michael, has started to experiment with his gender identity. Michael dresses up as a woman and wants to have surgery to become fully transitioned.
Although Michael never confronts Enrique about the transformation he wants to make, Enrique has suspicions and discovers it anyway. This challenges Enrique’s ideals about what it means to be a man and what it means for him personally to have raised a son that wants to be a woman. He deals with these challenges from his family and with the challenge of getting out of prison by becoming involved in the same kinds of skirmishes that probably put him in jail. Meanwhile, Angela struggles with breaking off her affair. Though she is supportive and protective of Michael, she seems somewhat oblivious to the transition Michael wants to make.
Sixteen year old Icelandic boy Gabriel returns from a trip to Manchester having had a sexual encounter with another boy. His friends and family all think he’s changed and he struggles to find his identity and ease back into his life as a young man.
When I arrived in the rainy late afternoon to see PLGFF’s premiere of the German film, and first from Director Sabine Bernardi Romeos, to be released later this year it was not to a packed house. Organizer Gabriel Mendoza didn’t consider it one of the fest’s blockbusters, though he loved the film. Indeed, compared to the line around the block when I left for 7pm’s Weekend, it wasn’t. But it was a triumph. Small it may seem, but every review I’ve read thus far of the film following a young trans man struggling with life and attractions through his transition, has been celebratory, and I wholeheartedly agree.
Another common sentiment I share about the film is that the well-written story is carried off flawlessly by lead actor Rick Okon. Okon plays the 20-year-old Lukas who is “accidentally” put into the female form during his year of German service. He wants desperately to get out and just be one of the guys, even though it is here that he has a Ine (Liv Lisa Fries) an old best friend (former lover?), who is also an out lesbian. In her sexually fluid, but not necessarily trans-inclusive, group of friends, Lukas falls for alpha hottie Fabio (Maximilian Befort).
Coming home from a stint in prison Enrique comes home to a very different life with his wife and son. The son is gay and Enrique grapples with accepting him for who he is or risk losing him. Sundance jury nominee.
It’s hard to figure out where to start when meditating on the importance of We Were Here, a documentary by David Weissman. It was the premier movie of the Portland Gay and Lesbian Film Festival which was not only a bold move but an great start to a necessary conversation. Weismann’s film illuminates the social, personal, political and cultural issues of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. The film itself has a small scope and because of that scope- it is able to highlight the broader issues of this epidemic. Its characters: Ed Wolf- an AIDS activist and caregiver; Paul Boneberg- executive director of the GLBT Historical Society; Daniel Goldstein- a visual artist and founding President of Under One Roof; Guy Clark- a local queer florist based out of SF’s Castro District; and Eileen Glutzer- a nurse in the height of the crisis and feminist health care activist. Weismann’s focus on these characters and their personal experience allow the film a lot of depth that captures the profound personal stories that highlight a larger collective experience.
In our second FTM-related tale, 10-year-old Laura moves to a new town and tells everyone her name is Michael. This works fine all summer long in the French countryside but things change and secrets begin to emerge as the school year approaches.
Two co-dependent best friends struggle through an imminent parting as one prepares to follow her dream of being a Broadway actress. The other, not-so-secretly in love with her BFF works through it by sleeping with a string of other ladies. Romantic and dramatic.
Hot ladies of rock…yes! Trigger follows the life of 2 besties who start a band together and become rock stars in the vein of the Go-Gos, Patti Smith or Souxsie and the Banshees. After the usual rock’n’roll melt down and band split they reunite 10 years later in a benefit for women in rock. Then stories are revealed and the true nature of their relationship emerges.
