Trans Films

There is very little in reguards to films when it comes to the topic of being transgender, this page is here to allow me to watch and review these films. Hopfully by doing this it will help me with the method and post production of my short film. I'm hoping that this will also help me in reguards to things like storyboarding and scripting due to senativity of the topic.

Boys Dont Cry

Release date: April 7, 2000 (United Kingdom)

Director: Kimberly Peirce

Screenplay: Kimberly Peirce, Andy Bienen

Featured songs: Boys Don't Cry, The Bluest Eyes in Texas, Tuesday's Gone, Cod'ine, She's A Diamond

Awards: Academy Award for Best Actress, more

Young female-to-male transgender Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank) leaves his hometown under threat when his ex-girlfriend's brother discovers that he's biologically female. Resettling in the small town of Falls City, Nebraska, Brandon falls for Lana (Chloë Sevigny), an aspiring singer, and begins to plan for their future together. But when her ex-convict friends, John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Tom (Brendan Sexton III), learn Brandon's secret, things change very quickly.

trailer here

All of this is true. There is a documentary, "The Brandon Teena Story," that came out earlier in 1999 and shows us photographs of Brandon, looking eerily like Hilary Swank, who plays the role in "Boys Don't Cry." In that film, we meet some of the women he dated ("Brandon knew how to treat a woman"), and we see the two men later charged with Brandon's rape and, after the local law authorities didn't act seriously on that charge, murder a few days later. Like Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, Brandon died because some violent men are threatened by any challenge to their shaky self-confidence

"Boys Don't Cry" is not sociology, however, but a romantic tragedy--a "Romeo and Juliet" set in a Nebraska trailer park. Brandon is not the smartest person on Earth, especially at judging which kinds of risks to take, but he is one of the nicest, and soon he has fallen in love with a Falls City girl named Lana (Chloe Sevigny). For Lana, Brandon is arguably the first nice boy she has ever dated. We meet two of the other local studs, John (Peter Sarsgaard) and Tom (Brendan Sexton 3rd), neither gifted with intelligence, both violent products of brutal backgrounds. They have the same attitude toward women that the gun nut has about prying his dying fingers off the revolver.

The film is about hanging out in gas stations and roller rinks, and lying sprawled on a couch looking with dulled eyes at television, and soul-crushing jobs, and about six-packs and country bars and Marlboros. There is a reason country music is sad. Into this wasteland, which is all Lana knows, comes Brandon, who brings her a flower.

The Lana character is crucial to the movie, and although Hilary Swank deserves all praise for her performance as Brandon, it is Sevigny who provides our entrance into the story. Representing the several women the real Brandon dated, she sees him as a warm, gentle, romantic lover. Does Lana know Brandon is a girl? At some point, certainly. But at what point exactly? There is a stretch when she knows, and yet she doesn't know, because she doesn't want to know; romance is built on illusion, and when we love someone, we love the illusion they have created for us.

Tom boy

Release date: September 16, 2011 (United Kingdom)

Director: Céline Sciamma

Running time: 1h 30m

Music composed by: Para One

Initial DVD release: September 21, 2011 (France)

Ten year old Laure isn't like most girls. She prefers football to dolls and sweaters to dresses. When Laure, her parents and little sister Jeanne move to a new neighbourhood, family life remains much the same. That is, until local girl Lisa mistakes Laure to be a boy. Indulging in this exciting new identity, Laure becomes Michael, and so begins a summer of long sunny afternoons, playground games and first kisses. Yet with the school term fast approaching, and with suspicions arising amongst friends and family, Laure must face up to an uncertain future.

The real brandon

Kimberly Peirce who directed this movie and co-wrote it with Andy Bienen, was faced with a project that could have gone wrong in countless ways. She finds the right note. She never cranks the story up above the level it's comfortable with; she doesn't underline the stupidity of the local law-enforcement officials because that's not necessary; she sees Tom and John not as simple killers but as the instruments of deep ignorance and inherited anti-social pathology. (Tom knows he's trouble; he holds his hand in a flame and then cuts himself, explaining, "This helps control the thing inside of me so I don't snap out at people.") The whole story can be explained this way: Most everybody in it behaves exactly according to their natures. The first time I saw the movie, I was completely absorbed by the characters--the deception, the romance, the betrayal. Only later did I fully realize what a great film it is, a worthy companion to those other masterpieces of death on the prairie, "Badlands" and "In Cold Blood." This could have been a clinical Movie of the Week, but instead it's a sad song about a free spirit who tried to fly a little too close to the flame.

Trailer for Tom boy

Amazing Reviews

Celine Sciamma's "Tomboy" would have been impossible without the casting of Zoe Heran in the title role. She isn't a masculine-looking girl or a feminine-looking boy. She is fresh, attractive, open-faced. If you think you're looking at a boy, you see one. If a girl, then that's what you see. The movie doesn't have a trace of gimmick to it; it's perfectly straightforward.

Tomboy is tender and affectionate. It shows us Laure/Mikael in an adventure that may be forgotten in adulthood or may form her adulthood. There is no conscious agenda in view. There is just a tomboy. Not everyone needs to be slammed into a category and locked there.

Romeos

Initial release: December 8, 2011 (Germany)

Director: Sabine Bernardi

Running time: 1h 36m

Music composed by: Roland Appel

Initial DVD release: January 17, 2012 (USA)

The film is a drama and tragicomedy which revolves around the romantic relationship between Lukas, a 20 year old gaytrans man and a cisgender bisexual man named Fabio.

Trailer for Romeos

This was a really good story. I was very impressed with the honesty and compassion I found here. The female writer/director (Sabine Bernardi) really gave the subject matter and characterization of Lukas a lot of integrity.

This drama centers around the emotional life of Lukas (Rick Okon), a young and very passable German Female to Male (FTM) transsexual, on his 25th shot of testosterone and 11 weeks away from his top surgery. Lukas has begun his year of social service and struggles with being forced to live in the female quarters. Here only one person in his dorm knows the secret of his gender identity... a female lesbian who was his best friend in high school and is aware of his whole transition. Lukas is very self conscious about his body (breasts, in particular) and is very needy and clingy with his female friend in most social situations. Although she struggles to accept how much her friend has changed... ultimately, she is always there for him and I thought he was very lucky to have her.

In addition to these struggles, Lukas (who identifies as a gay man) begins to explore his attraction to men.... men who assume he is a gay man. The emotional turmoil of dealing with his attractions, but not feeling comfortable or safe to act on anything or be honest with others, is a strong focus here.

Lukas doesn't have it easy. And yet I didn't find this story depressing. It was actually hopeful and inspiring in many respects. His family is at least partially accepting, he has one really good friend... and he's got online connections to other transmen who share their stories and support him. I was glad he had a support system and that the film wasn't just a story focused on violence and hatred. This was so much more.

When I found out the actor who plays Lukas is a bio male... I expected to be disappointed that a real transman wasn't cast here. I mean, sure that would of been great. But I gotta say... Rick Okon did a beautiful and highly believable job here. The emotion conveyed in every minor expression and in his body language was truly exceptional. And if I hadn't read in the reviews that Lukas is played by a bio male... I woulda thought he really was a pre-op transman after seeing him with his shirt off (sure looked like real female breasts to me!). I also read that the casting was open to real transmen and that there just weren't many replies. So it is what it is... and I was really pleased that this actor really gave the characterization of Lukas the honesty it deserved