“Who Does Visibility Serve and Who Does it Harm?”: Chase Joynt and Morgan M. Page on Their Sundance Doc Framing Agnes

Framing Agnes, the title of Chase Joynt’s (No Ordinary Man) latest genre-queering film – world premiering in the Next section at this year’s Sundance – refers to a controversial trans woman who, in the 1960s, participated in a groundbreaking gender health research study at UCLA. It also refers to the fact that, historically, trans people have never been allowed to leave the frame. Or, paradoxically, enter the frame (if not a blond beauty like Agnes or Christine Jorgensen). So how does Joynt place Agnes in his cinematic frame without framing her? The answer is with an abundance of artistic ingenuity and a little help from his friends. (Who happen to be deep-thinking trans stars , including Zackary Drucker, who plays Agnes, Angelica Ross, Jen Richards, Max Wolf Valerio, Silas Howard, and Stephen Ira.) Just prior to the film’s (January 22) virtual debut Filmmaker reached out to Joynt and his co-writer Morgan M. Page (the London-based creator of the trans history podcast “One From the Vaults,” and EP of the Wondery investigative podcast series “Harsh Reality: The Story of Miriam Rivera”) to find out how they learned about Agnes and came up with the docu-fiction’s innovative talk show element, and whether gender fluidity might soon usher in a golden age of genre fluidity.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

"I Wanted To Go Deeper Than Just a Portrait of a Band”: Rita Baghdadi on her Sundance-Premiering doc Sirens

Trying to make it as a twenty-something in a band is hard enough. But when that band is Slave to Sirens, the Middle East’s first all-female metal group, the stakes and the obstacles can seem off the charts. Which is exactly what makes Moroccan-American director and cinematographer Rita Baghdadi’s Sirens, world-premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at this year’s Sundance, so engrossing. The film focuses on the band’s co-founders and guitarists Lilas and Shery, who over the course of a brisk 78 minutes navigate friendship and sexuality, artistic vision and international fame – all within the explosive confines of Lebanon’s often misogynistic and homophobic society. (And then the Port of Beirut literally blows up.) Luckily, Filmmaker got the chance to catch up with Baghdadi (My Country No More) just prior to the doc’s January 23rd debut to learn all about Sirens and Slave to Sirens – and creating an environment in which Arab women can become the stars of their own true stories.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.