Rites Of Passage Documentary

Interesting trailer for an award winning documentary called Rites of Passage featuring Muslim transwoman Maya Jafer

Becoming Johanna Documentary

I'm always on the lookout for interesting trans documentaries, especially when they tell the stories of trans people of color.   Renee of Womanist Musings talked about this one with a post back in April that's entitled Becoming Johanna-The Struggles Of A Latina Trans Girl

It's part of a series of films from the Youth And Gender Media Project which is producing short films about the complexities and challenges facing gender variant youth.

These films are aimed at and seek to educate teachers, administrators, parents and students in school communities across the United States.    They also are designed according to the Youth and Gender Media Project website to introduce radical new concepts for many audiences.




They point out the very idea that a young child can be transgender and have the wherewithal to fight against the pressures to conform to a binary gender paradigm, to the new and still very rare use of hormone blockers to delay puberty. However, since the films are structured around universal themes such as parenting and acceptance, identity and difference, growing up and coming of age, tolerance, love and self-esteem, they remain accessible and deeply moving even to people who are resistant to the idea of transgender youth.to 

And based on the transphobic Hateraid, ignorance and discrimination we transpeople get buffeted with from all the communities we interact with, they are sorely needed.

Trans Documentary-Is She Or Isn't He?

Another trans documentary, this one's spread out over a five year period 

'I Am The Queen' Documentary

I Am The Queen is a documentary produced by Josue Pellot and Henriique Cirne-Lima that focuses on a group of Latina trans women in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago and a 2010 trans pageant organized and sponsored by VIDA/Sida.   




Trailer 2

'Dark Girls' Documentary

All Black women get smacked with the 'unwoman' meme, but it's even worse on the dark skinned sisters.

Check out this clip from the documentary Dark Girls, directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry which explores the biases and deep seated attitudes inside and outside African American culture about skin color.


Dark Girls: Preview from Bradinn French on Vimeo.

Tales Of The Waria Documentary

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country population wise, and does have a trans community inside its borders called the waria..   A documentary has been produced by director Kathy Huang which follows three members of this community called  Tales Of The Waria.

The first video clip is of Kathy Huang describing her documentary and the second one is a trailer for it.  enjoy.

'Photos Of Angie' Debuts At Denver Film Festival

Angie Zapata was brutally taken away from us three years ago, but her brief life and the people she touched during that time will live on.   

A documentary produced by Denver based filmmakers Alan and David Dominguez premiered last night at the 13th XicanIndie Film Festival in Denver.  

The film, 'Photos of Angie' moves between Angie’s life and self-discovery told through family and friends, to the trial of her killer, Allen Andrade, and how prosecutors used national hate crime legislation to prosecute him in 2009.

“Many aspects of this story struck me — Angie’s struggle to discover who she was and her courage to do right by herself, the fact that human sexuality is not nearly as neatly packaged as we like to think, and how common anti-transgender violence is,” said director Alan Dominguez in a news release. “Angie’s family took me on a very personal journey through their lives, and it led me to realize that only through compassion and understanding, all of us have to work together to write the end of the story — to create a world governed by freedom to be who we are, without fear.”

The Dominguez brothers through their Denver based production company called Loco Lane Filmworks shows films in festivals throughout the United States and Latin America.

Hopefully I'll get to see 'Photos Of Angie' at one near me soon.

Translatina Showing In DC

Translatina is a 90 minute documentary that was three years in the making, took 100 hours of filming and contains interviews from people in 15 nations.

The documentary has been selected for five international festivals and it chronicles the challenges faced by Latin American trans women in accessing work, education, justice, health care, and other basic services in the region.

The Spanish language film with English subtitles also showcases the efforts of Latin American transgender organizations are starting to dialogue with governments in the region to demand justice and services for trans women.

For those of you in the Washington DC metro areawho wish to see it, you may head over to the Pan American Health Organization later today and check out their screening of Translatina

PAHO is located at 525 Twenty-third Street, N.W., and the screening will run from 6:00 to 8:30 PM EDT. After a welcoming ceremony, they will serve refreshments before beginning the film.

Here's the trailer for it, of which sections of it aren't workplace viewer friendly.



The screening is sponsored by the group Latin@s En Accion. If you need more info about it you can call Ruby Corado at (202) 506-0894

Gemini Mini Documentary

TransGriot Note: Mini Documentary on Chicago drag queen Saya Naomi Diaz Deleon or Gemini. It includes commentary from Christina Kahrl, who was recently featured on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

Alexandra Billings Documentary

Alexandra Billings is another one of our iconic transwomen I'm looking forward to meeting one day. I'm looking forward to seeing her in 'Stealth' when it finally hits a multiplex near you.

While searching for trans themed videos I ran this documentary about her life entitled Schoolboy to Showgirl:PThe Alexandra Billings Story posted to YouTube.

Enjoy



Part 2



Part 3


Part 4

MTV True Life-I'm Changing My Sex

Got a chance last night to check out the latest episode in the MTV True Life series that focuses on trans people. I didn't like the title, but I forgave them after I watched the show and noted how respectfully done the documentary was.

The show focuses on the lives of transwoman Elle and transman Ted, who are both well into their transitions and on track for their respective surgeries.

Elle's transition is moving forward towards SRS with help of a supportive family. As you watch it, she has an unexpected and tragic loss on the road to Trinidad, CO and her surgery date with Dr. Marci Bowers.

You also get to see a snippet of Elle's breast augmentation surgery as well as her visit with Dr. Bowers.

One of the cool things about this trans documentary is that it features Ted, an African descended transman. It's not often I get to see my transbrothas featured in these various documentaries, and it was a refreshing change of pace.

You get to see Ted as he juggles school, saving for his chest surgery and marriage enroute to his date with the surgeon.

There's also a section in which they show a little of their post recovery surgery issues.

If you missed it last night, there's a repeat showing of it at 2 AM EDT before they eventually put it on the True Life section of the MTV website for you to watch.

Contestant No. 2

You know I love pageants and have documented on TransGriot the various transgender ones around the world that happen.

We've had some fierce debates about the relevance of them and will have them again. I still line up on the side of people who see pageants as a stepping stone to a better life or for who winning them is their dream.

So with that being said, I was intrigued by an episode of PBS Wide Angle documentary series called 'Contestant No 2' which began running on PBS July 29.

It documents the story of Duah Feres, a young Arab-Israeli Druze woman who dreams of a life beyond her Galilee village. Her decision to enter the Miss Israel pageant triggers a chain of events that impact Duah, her family and her village.

It also leads us to ask the question how far can an idealistic youth trying to live her life and achieve her dreams go to challenge the conservative mores and attitudes of her people? How far will the older generation go to enforce their will and their values on her?

It was a fascinating documentary to watch. You feel for Duah, who literally put her life on the line to do it. It was filmed in 2006, so I'm wondering what Duah's life is like now.

But I don't want to spoil the Wide Angle episode for you, so I'll let y'all watch it for yourselves and comment below.

HR 676- The Single Payer Solution

Found this on YouTube. It's about an event held in Washington discussing HR 676, the bill which will establish if passed into law a single payer universal health care system in the US.

Transgeneration

Transgeneration is a 2005 documentary by filmmaker Jeremy Simmons that spent a year following the lives of transgender students Gabbi, Raci, Lucas and TJ. It was interesting to watch them define who they are and take control of their gender identity and their lives, and was a little bittersweet for me personally.

It was so popular they were reunited at in April 2006 for the GLAAD Media Awards in which thi film was nominated for Best Documentary
















I need to add this documentary to my own personal DVD collection.

Documentary-She's My Son

I posted the article a few months ago about the award winning documentary She's My Son by Indrani Kopal.

It peeks into the lives of Malaysian transwomen and once again, underscores the comment I made sometime ago that being transgender is a worldwide issue. We are everywhere, and we are a part of the human family that needs to be embraced, not reviled.

Here's the YouTube uploaded video of it.

The BBC Teen Transsexuals Documentary

Y'all knew that I was going to find that video of the BBC documentary if it was uploaded to the Net and post it here. The first attempt to do so got derailed when the first place I found it on YouTube deleted it, but I quickly found another person who'd uploaded it, and this time I got all six parts of it.

So now, here's the documentary.



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

Black In America

Tonight and tomorrow at 9 PM EDT CNN will devote four hours of its programming to talk about my peeps. It will rerun at midnight if you miss either part.

The show is called 'Black In America' and will be hosted by award winning journalist Soledad O'Brien.

Tonight's segment, called 'Black in America: The Black Woman and Family,' focuses on the issues of African-American women. Tomorrow's two-hour segment, 'The Black Man', will focus on the issues that impact them.


Soledad was a perfect choice to host this series. I've always liked her as a journalist, anyway. Hearing that she was doing this yearlong report allayed one of the concerns I had that it would drift into stereotypical cliches about us.

I feel confident that with her interesting personal background, this will be another one of her informative, balanced stories.

I remember the day I discovered Soledad O'Brien was African-American as well. I surmised she was Latina and her last name give you one major clue about her Irish heritage as well. But it took me watching C-SPAN coverage of a National Association of Black Journalists convention event that was happening in Indianapolis a few years ago to uncover the African-American piece.

During that NABJ event I happened to see her asking a question on camera. Someone mentioned that she was a member of the group and I had a 'say what?' moment. It piqued my interest in finding out a little more about her background and I discovered that her mother is Afro-Cuban. She's also a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists as well.

If you really want to gain a little insight into the world through the TransGriot's and other African-American eyes, make it a point to watch or Tivo this documentary.

Transteen Documentaries

Here are two more documentaries on transteens that I found on YouTube. Enjoy.


The MSNBC story on Angelika Torres




Julie Joyce's story 'I'm Not A Boy'

The 20/20 Transgender Kids Documentary

TransGriot Note: This is the 20/20 story entitled 'My Secret Self' on transgender kids that aired on ABC.

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5




Check out the FAQ on transgender kids.

How Do I Look?

If you were one of those people who caught Paris Is Burning in the theaters back in the day and wondered what's up with the New York ballroom community, you'll probably be interested in Wolfgang Busch's How Do I Look documentary. There's a DVD of it available on howdoilooknyc.org




Conceived as a sequel to this internationally known cult favorite, it was shot over a series of balls from 1997 and is produced by Kevin Ultra Omni. It not only takes a snapshot of some old school legends like Octavia St. Laurent, it introduces you to the new legends on the scene




If after seeing this movie or reading this post you'd like more info on what the ballroom community is currently doing, check out Frank Leon Roberts' (we're not related as far as I know) excellent blog Canwebefrank.com on a regular basis.

In addition to the coverage of the ballroom communty, Frank also comments on social issues, the African-American GLBT community and his everyday adventures in his quest for his doctorate.

The cast and crew of How Do I look are also available for lectures and screenings as well, so check the website for further info on rates and availability.