Summary
In the 21st century, Hollywood saw the potential money in telling more “authentic” mainstream queer stories due to the advent of the New Queer Cinema of the 1990s. In 2024, we are in the midst of a potentially new movement in which three trans-authored films are reshaping the possibilities of what a trans film looks like.
Schoenbrun taps into the complex nature of trans viewership and nostalgia, which is typically built upon images of fantasy as placeholders until the trans person in question can fully embody their own identity. The film wonders if this type of idealized pursuit can ever truly be a healthy relationship.
Vera initially conceived of The People’s Joker as a found footage exercise, which would have used existing footage from other sources to create a new Joker film. The People's Joker is a monument to that very idea, because it is at once all the elements of Joker, Kidman’S Chase Meridian, Harley Quinn, and Selina Kyle’’'s transformative moment in Batman Returns all rolled into one being.
The film follows a young trans filmmaker named Sophie as she tries to make it in the film industry and learn more about a trans film from the past that doesn’t actually exist. T-Blockers is a film about art imitating life imitating art in the vein of Cheryl Dunye’s New Queer Cinema classic The Watermelon Woman.
We are seeing the formulation of a new trans cinema movement in North America. With these three films, and other recent pictures made by trans filmmakers, we are seeing a new generation of filmmakers. We are also seeing the birth of a generation of new generation filmmakers.
