Trans in Film and Video 3/6/23

Geena Rocero

Emmy-nominated producer, filmmaker, author and activist Geena Rocero has joined the SeeHer advisory board, an initiative aimed at increasing the accurate portrayal of women and girls in advertising and media. Rocero made history in 2014 as the first trans person to speak about trans issues at the TED Conference. When asked about her appointment to the advisory board, alongside many well well-known female actors, activists and filmmakers she said in a statement, “I hope to show that my perspective as a trans-Filipina contributes to a more equitable media landscape. As a filmmaker and producer, I always find that when I center on subjects that are often left out, I discover worlds and ideas that are far richer than I imagined.” Get more information from Variety.

You know you’ve made it in showbiz when you get booked for a designer fragrance ad campaign. Elliot Page joined the ranks of fragrance promoters in his first-ever campaign for Gucci. Page appears alongside Julia Garner (Inventing Anna) and A$AP Rocky in the ad for Gucci’s Guilty ‘pour homme’ scent. Learn more and see the spot on The Daily Mail site.

The film Everything Everywhere All at Once is making headlines as it gathers award wins. While , as far as we know, there are no transgender cast members we do know that the producers are trans allies. Props and costume pieces from the film are being auctioned off and one of the beneficiaries is the Transgender Law Center. Learn where the other proceeds will go from an article in Dazed.

Thea Ehre

Till the End of the Night is a German film that blends a police procedural and a trans/gay romance. The character Leni, is a trans woman newly out of prison after serving half of a two-year sentence for dealing speed. Her parole is conditional on her helping the police to infiltrate an online drug-trafficking network run by her former employer. To take in the crooks Leni has to live in an apartment with an undercover police officer and they have to pretend to be a couple. The twist is, before Leni transitioned, she and the cop had a gay relationship. Leni is portrayed by trans actress Thea Ehre. You can learn more about the film from a less than stellar review in Variety.

Far from the drama of the German film is a new short comedy from filmmaker Nyala Moon titled How Not To Date While Trans. The film follows a New Yorker named Andie Philomena (played by Moon), as she embarks on a number of first dates, Sex and the City-style. She meets a variety of men on her quest for love and that’s the origin of the comedy. The film was inspired by the star’s own hopes for finding a romantic partner. Moon said of why she made the film, “Trans people are regular people experiencing life, and life is messy. Everyone can relate to the struggles of looking for love and acceptance. If we focus on that, we will hopefully create common ground.”

Here is the film in its entirety.

The debut novel by trans writer Casey Plett is titled Little Fish and the film rights have been picked up by Canadian filmmaker Louise Weard. The novel will be adapted by independent production company Black Mansion Films. The book is about a 30-year-old trans woman living in Winnipeg, Canada. The filmmaker said in a statement, “I am so happy to be developing Casey’s novel Little Fish, a raw and authentic portrait of a trans woman that handles its material with a specificity of voice that is without precedent in the trans stories that have been brought to the screen so far.” Get more info about the author, the novel, and the proposed film from the CBC website.

Lambert fearing the worst.

When I saw the 1979 film Alien on a big screen I left the theater with a tension headache and cramped hands from gripping the seat’s arms. It was scary and nonstop tension after John Hurt’s character “births” a little monster. Set on a space freighter called Nostromo, Alien follows the ship’s seven-person crew as they respond to a distress signal, only to be menaced by a deadly extraterrestrial lifeform known as a Xenomorph. What I didn’t know about the film was that one of the crew members was a transgender character. Played by Veronica Cartwright, Joan Lambert is the only other woman on the crew of the Nostromo aside from Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley. Lambert is the ship’s navigator and is revealed to be trans in Ripley’s debriefing scene in the 1986 sequel Aliens. There is a dossier visible behind Ripley during the scene, which flashes between the several deceased crew members. While the character was played by a cisgender woman it is an example of early trans representation in film. Dig into it further on the Screen Rant website.

Tags: featured, film, Transgender

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment