Sundance 40 Review: An Intersectional Exploration of Transmasculinity and Identity Makes “Desire Lines” A True Standout
On Friday, January 19th, the Utah House of Representatives voted to advance a restrictive anti-trans bill outlawing trans people from using bathrooms aligning with their gender identity. It will now go to the Republican controlled senate for approval. Three days after the advancement, Jules Rosskam’s film “Desire Lines” premiered in Park City, Utah. A multilayered […]
A Look Back: Luchina Fisher’s “Mama Gloria” brings a hopeful outlook to the young trans community
For Women’s History Month and Trans Visibility Day approaching on March 31, we bring back our interview from the Chicago International Film Festival in October 2020. We are proud to support “Mama Gloria” – an intimate profile of Chicago’s trailblazing Black transgender icon and activist Gloria Allen. Now streaming on PBS. Visit mamagloriafilm.com for more […]
Isabel Sandoval beautifully elevates the marginalized in “Lingua Franca”
“Every image or sound is a vessel for emotion: rapture, despair, sensuousness, fury, a combination of these. That makes cinema a kind of legerdemain: the art of sculpting such seemingly artificial elements to create a singular, genuine emotional experience.” –excerpt from Isabel Sandoval’s director’s statement Isabel Sandoval is not just about making great films, she […]
Filmmaker Anna Kerrigan takes us on the heartfelt journey of a father and his trans son in “Cowboys”
I like that idea that when you’re in nature you can be your true self, and not influenced by the constructs of your society. It’s a really interesting way to re-appropriate nature, sort of nodding to a genre which is so heteronormative and so male as some sort of backdrop. I have to admit I […]
A conversation between Cinema Femme founder Rebecca Martin and film critic Danielle Solzman
“This past season, GLAAD did their report, and there’s been an increase of trans actors in series, but a lot of that is because of “Pose” (2018). So it would be nice to see more trans actors taking on roles. But I’d like to see, not so much because of the story, but casting directors being like, “Hey, you don’t necessarily need to write this character as cis; it can be a trans person.” “The Sisters Brothers” (2018) and “Colette” (2018) both had trans actors playing cisgender characters.”
A Poem for the Mother
Illustration by Tavi Veraldi A Poem for the Mother Who lost her son… In a car crash In a dog fight Amid the dust mines of recessed memories A poem for the agony For the fear For the future Remembering to call her before you go to sleep When the gunshots start pouring When the enemies roll […]
‘Strong Island’: documentary filmmaking as a coming-of-age tale
It’s always the women, the queer, and the blacks. They are the ones who tell stories. They are the ones who dig deep into their families’ histories. They are the ones who try to uncover the truth and make amends with the past so they can live a different future. It’s always people like us—those […]
The contours of fear: a documentary elegy
It is a pessimistic view of life in America, and for Yance Ford and millions of people who look like him, it is a daily reality: living with the fear of being treated as a second-class citizen in school, housing, employment, and the law.