Educational Media Reviews Online

The focus of this film addresses the difficulty of transgender people being represented in the local political scene. A transgender woman tries to become a member of city council in Houston, Texas. The movie shows the ups and downs of this event in her life. The film portrays the emotional passage that the person must endure to try and break into the solid political landscape against her.

The camera work in this film is very raw and is shot like a family movie. The closeups of Frankie’s partner attempt to establish the relationship between the two people. There was a split on trying to show that the person was not trying to focus on being a transgender for the political race. The film ended up doing just that by portraying the candidate being forced to confront the transgender issue rather than the issues of their district. The lighting was poor and sometimes was either over or underlit in different places. There were intermittent shots of trees blowing in the wind to symbolize the transitioning from one scene to another.

The encouraging piece of this film is the lesson that, whoever you are, getting involved in local politics is important. This film could be used by students from high school to college level who are struggling with their gender identity to learn that their voice can make a difference in their home communities. This film could also be shown in a political science or social sciences curriculum to show changes in the political landscape of the United States.

Awards:
Official Selection at the 2022 Sidewalk Film Festival; 2022 a GLIFF Prism Film Festival 35; 2022 Outfest LA LGBTQ+ Film Festival; 2022 Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival; Grand Jury Prize at the Dallas International Film Festival

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