Why Do I Feel like a Boy? (2019)

The Fabulous Ones

It often happens that at the moment of death, transgender individuals are shorn of their identity. Their families are ashamed, the funeral takes place in secret, and on the tomb appears the name the deceased had before their transition, in one stroke nullifying the entire life path they had chosen. The same thing happened to Antonia. Her girlfriends gather to honor her memory and give her back her identity denied. In telling her story, the film’s stars, all drawn from the variegated transgender world, interweave the narrative with tales of their own lives, experiences, and memories.

Queens Don’t Cry

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

There's a Star

Samuel LeBlanc, a young transgender musician, embarks on a journey with his friends through the work of Acadian musician Angèle Arsenault (1943-2014). Coming from a small village, Samuel has long questioned his queer identity and his cultural identity. Does a queer Acadie exist? This musical documentary project will explore his double minority and the journey of young people, who like him, realize that despite the difficulties there is a star for each of us.

Extermínio

Exterínio proposes a reflection on the lives of trans women in a city in the interior of Rio Grande do Sul, based on a murder that occurred in 2016. Memories, provocations, life stories that intersect in a plot about the difficulties of living and being trans in the interior of the country that most murders trans women in the world.

Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story

Celebrated skateboarder Leo Baker shares the details of their rise to fame and the clash between their career and self-discovery as a trans person.

Tie and Red Nail

Several characters realize their personal way to build their own identity from the choice of genre. Transsexual, transgender, crossdressing – the defining of terminologies different ways of looking at yourself are constantly rising, portraying a universe of possibilities, expanding the boundaries of the possible and permitted.

The Right Girls

In this documentary about friendship and perseverance, three young transgender women from El Salvador and Honduras go on a 2,400-mile journey with the high-profile migrant caravan. These women, strangers at the outset and fleeing extortion, discrimination, and abusive relationships, endure hardship as they slowly make their way to the US, teaming up with other trans girls along the route and integrating with the caravan’s LGBTQ community.

We Are Perfect

In this documentary, a group of trans and nonbinary actors share common experiences while pursuing a life-changing role for the film "Fanfic".

Gendernauts: A Journey Through Shifting Identities

Monika Treut explores the worlds and thoughts of several female to male transgendered individuals. As with Treuts first film, Jungfrauenmaschine, Gendernauts, enters a minority sector of San Fransisco culture. The characters in this film have a lot to complain about, and they do. They are people whose physical appearance (female) does not match their inner sexual identity (male). The subject is pinpointed in the film independant of sexual orientation. Leave your conservative hats at the door, this is going to need your special attention.

Victoria

In a small and conservative city in Jalisco, Alex builds his identity and defends his dreams: fatherhood, music, being a man.

Kenya

Trans women face extreme violence in Mexico City, and sex workers are even more vulnerable. This raw and deeply affecting portrait of Kenya gives an insider’s view of the impact that violence has on the community, and how complex life is for them. The film begins shortly after Kenya witnesses her friend Paola being murdered by a client. The film follows Kenya closely. Will the family accept burying Paola as she was: a flamboyant trans woman? Kenya approaches Paola’s loved ones with great respect and understanding—something she rarely experiences herself. When the murderer is released, she embarks on a lengthy battle for justice, backed up by her “sisters.”

Into My Name

Nic, Leo, Andrea and Raff determine their own gender identities. Each of their gender biographies is different, but the societal barriers to their social, physical and legal changes are the same. Together they are strong.

Cinema Fouad

Cinema Fouad is a documentary portrait of Khaled El Kurdi, a Syrian trans woman living in Beirut, where she earns a living as a domestic worker and belly dancer. Soueid shows us scenes of El Kurdi’s domestic world: eating, applying make-up, dancing in her bedroom, all while reflecting on her life and experiences. She expresses her desire to undergo gender reassignment surgery, and mourns the death of her lover, a Palestinian freedom fighter. She often alludes to the aggressions she faces outside of her home, and through her adept defiance in the face of some of Soueid’s more goading questions, we recognize the echoing of these aggressions in his role as interviewer.

Orlando, My Political Biography

Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel "Orlando: A Biography" follows the centuries-spanning life of a young nobleman who awakens to find that they are a woman. Almost a century after its publication, Paul B. Preciado claims that fiction has become reality and Orlando's story lies at the root of all contemporary trans and non-binary life.

Where Love Lives: A Story of Dancefloor Culture & Expression

Documentary by the music label Defected and its brand Glitterbox about electronic music, its beginning in New York and its importance for minorities all around the world.

American Reflexxx

American Reflexxx is a short film documenting a social experiment that took place in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Alli Coates filmed performance artist Signe Pierce as she strutted down a busy oceanside street in stripper garb and a reflective mask. The pair agreed not to communicate until the experiment was completed, but never anticipated the horror that would unfold in under an hour. The result is a heart wrenching technicolor spectacle that raises questions about gender stereotypes, mob mentality, and violence in America.

Dolores guapa!

Religious-based images and traditions permeate the lives of all the people who inhabit Seville. Historically, the city's mariquitas ("sissies") have also assimilated them in their childhood and, through them, have been creating their own encounter spaces and their own codes. Nowadays, new dissident identities continue to respond to them: they participate or distance themselves, they continue what exists or transform it. This film looks at these traditions from a perspective always relegated to the margins.

Trans-Action

Trans-Action tells the story of an extraordinary woman. Anna Grodzka who in 2011 became the first transgender person in the Polish government, and the third transgender member of government in world history, was born in the male body and decided to finally begin her life as a woman only in her 50s. The film documents the most important chapters in this intimate process of transformation. We observe Anna in her daily activities in Warsaw, we witness her intimate conversations with her son and closest friends.

África

Africa, a trans woman dedicated to musical representation and comic entertainment on Facebook exhibits her daily life through live broadcasts, having success and a large influx of viewers. This while she is getting ready for her special program in honor of her best friend Vicenta de Loris, since a year has passed since her life was taken from her.

LARRY (they/them)

A young non-binary trans photographer, Laurence Philomène asserts themselves as one of the most original and inspiring voices of their generation and an icon of the LGBTQ+ community. Revealing both Laurence's intimate world and creative process, "LARRY (they/them)" paints a luminous and committed portrait of the complex and often misunderstood multiplicity of trans and non-binary identities and experiences.

Soul of the Desert

A documentary on the road that tracks the journey by Georgina, an elderly transgender woman forced to cross the sandy peninsula Guajira, on foot, to obtain the thing she has desired for almost half a century: a document that will hand her the right to be what she has always felt she was, and will allow her, at long last, to vote.

Wërapara

Amidst the Colombian Andes, a group of trans women from the Embera Chami community make their way into the international fashion scene, empowered through artistic collaboration and creation while preserving their spiritual heritage and ancestral connection to their territory.

Spectrum

Through personal stories, the documentary approaches the issues of gender identity and legal gender recognition in Greece. The three main characters explain how society has treated them, by narrating their experiences from the past and the present.

Peixes Vivos

Thamirys and Raphael are filming the short film "Peixe Vivo", starring their children Agatha and Gustavo - two 8-year-old trans children.

I Have To Say I Love You

A documentary about resilience and the fight against suicide among trans people, the film portrays the characters’ relationships with their bodies, life and all that is sacred. It dives into the hearts of Aretha, Yago, Deniell and Ariel in an attempt to promote inner healing.

This Is Not Me

Iran is the only country in the region to recognise trans people (any other LGBQ+ identity is banned). Both Shervin and Samar offer a glimpse into what life is like for trans youth, who despite loving and supportive parents are forced to live covert lives, shy away from their neighbours and even consider emigration, in order to be who they truly are. One of the many heartrending scenes in this documentary features one of the boys, fully clothed on the beach and yearning to go swimming, while the other shouts at his parents, asking whether his father is also forced to wear a headscarf. This is Not Me is a detailed depiction of the legal and social labyrinth that promises a slim aperture of freedom.

Intransitivo

A documentary about the lives of eight trans people from different parts of Rio Grande do Sul, based on two narrative lines; the first, and main one, is composed of in-depth interviews that seek a multiplicity of experiences, addressing issues related to transition and also to other identity and intersectional crossings, such as class, race, age, sexuality, and body.

I am a Woman

Documentary film about the life of a transgender woman, current political situation in Slovakia and the power of hatred.

Envy/Desire

New York transsexual socialite Bella thinks she has scored the masculine hetero man of her dreams. The illusion is shattered when her best friend Natasha tells her Ethan, might not be the man she thinks he is; in fact, he might not want to be a man at all.

Bacurau

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

Under My Skin

Denny, a free spirit and artist falls for Ryan, a straight laced lawyer. When Denny questions gender their love is tested.

My Emptiness and I

Raphi, from France, fantasises about romances with princes, and about starting a traditional family. But in reality, things aren’t like that. She works in a call centre in Barcelona, struggles with at times embarrassing dates, and is diagnosed by her therapist as having gender dysphoria. During this confusing, yet valuable period, we follow this trans woman as she makes her transition, as well as in her everyday life. She talks candidly with colleagues, queer friends, and the men she meets through apps. In spite of all the advice she receives, it turns out that it is mostly time and experience that will help her embrace her place in this world.

Marie

Due to her father’s death, Marie returns to the countryside after 15 years. Her childhood friend, Estêvão, is leaving with her on a trip to Crato, her father’s hometown.

Tiresia

Based on the legend of Tiresias, it tells of a transsexual who is kidnapped by a man and left to die in the woods. She is then saved by a family and receives the gift of telling the future.

Sukeban Boy

A raucous teen boy with a feminine face is teased everywhere, so his odd biker father dresses him as a girl and sends him to an all-girl school. The lad introduces himself as Sukeban, and a classmate, Michiko, takes him to after-school activities. Lessons on humility turn violent when a masked hatchet-wielding woman turns up. Jealousy, syringes of hormones, bare breasts, a blood bath, and more figure in the resolution.

Tangerine

It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra, embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.