“I Operate From a Trans Lens, or Frame, as Though It Is the Only Choice Available”: Jules Rosskam on Desire Lines

For me, watching Jules Rosskam’s Desire Lines, which won this year’s Sundance Special Jury Award in the NEXT competition, was a cinematic breath of fresh air. The experimental feature combines no holds barred interviews with transmen (of all shapes and colors) who are attracted to men, with a fictional storyline involving a real archive (one that includes shamefully buried history, like the story of author/ activist Lou Sullivan, probably the first transgender man to publicly identify as gay). The result is a riveting look back in time, and to the present and possible future, to reveal how, in the words of the director, “gender and sexuality animate each other.” Post-Sundance Filmmaker reached out to Rosskam, who is also a longtime artist and educator, to learn all about reframing queer history through a trans lens. After playing the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival and BFI Flare, Desire Lines will screen at the upcoming Wicked Queer, Cleveland International and Milwaukee film festivals.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.

Ways of (nonbinary) thinking: on desire and Desire Lines

“Past and present collide when an Iranian American trans man time-travels through an LGBTQ+ archive on a dizzying and erotic quest to unravel his own sexual desires” reads the synopsis for Jules Rosskam’s Sundance-premiering (and Special Jury Award in the NEXT competition-winning) Desire Lines. It’s a hybrid doc that uses a fictional narrative to unbury inconvenient history. (How many of us know the name of the trailblazing author and activist Lou Sullivan, probably the first trans man to publicly identify as gay? Where’s Lou’s biopic?) And an experimental film that features shockingly frank contemporary interviews with trans men – which opens up a Pandora’s Box of questions and conundrums strictly for, and about, queers. (In other words, straight cis folks are welcome to look but don’t touch. Refreshingly, this conversation, for once, isn’t about you.)

To read the rest of my nonconforming essay visit Global Comment.