Akkadia Ford - Trans New Wave Cinema

The Trans New Wave is a new genre of independent gender-diverse cinema that emerged in the twenty-first century. This is an era of a profoundly new cinema centralising the lived experiences of transgender embodiment and sexualities. As a cinematic era, the films that are the focus of this book have been written, directed, produced and exhibited since 2008. These screen texts are centred upon the concerns, themes, narratives andmost importantlythe lives of transgender filmmakers, film participants and gender-diverse communities and allies. Initially through the work of independent transgender filmmakers and activists in the Bay Area of San Francisco and in Los Angeles, the cinematic impulses of this Wave simultaneously arose synergistically throughout the world. Integral to this process is the international circuit of independent filmmakers and film festivals, focussed upon gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer film festivals and the dedicated sites of trans cinema exhibition. This book presents a critical cultural study of the Trans New Wave as a new genre in cinema. Encompassing a wide range of cinematic texts, from short films, documentaries, experimental films and animations to feature films, across life histories, narratives and themes, these are films that centralise trans agency.

This book is situated within the broader disciplines of screen, media and cultural studies and the critical field of Steinbock (2011, 2013) and Cel Keegan (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018) are examined in context to specific aspects of trans cinema.

Joelle Ruby affect remaining a key area of critical engagement in trans cinema studies scholarship. This text is significant, as one of the three films featured in Tristan Taorminos original 2008 article to illustrate the emergence of The New Wave of Trans Cinema.

The aim of this book differs from these prior scholarly investigations within trans cinema studies through focusing upon the Trans New Wave as a new genre that encompasses an ever-widening range of cinematic styles, themes and narratives. A further aim is to build upon and contribute to the ever-growing literature on transgender cinema. The intention is not to be an exhaustive encyclopaedia of all trans films written, directed and produced (this would be presumptive and most likely impossible) but to provide an overview of key styles, representational strategies and cinematic texts that have been exhibited since 2008, particularly on the international This acknowledges that trans cinema is developing at a rapid pace and that new films emerge daily.

To understand the nexus between screen industry and screen theory, the discussion will incorporate the role of film festivals and classifications (ratings) systems upon trans screen content production, distribution and exhibition. The tensions inherent in presenting non-hegemonic screen content is not sequestered to dealings with official classifications (ratings) bodies but has also been evident in the programming of film festivals, with trans screen content frequently excluded, or marginalised within programmes, or presented at a lower ratio of the overall films exhibited. This has led to dedicated sites of trans cinematic content being established, including the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (the oldest trans film festival in the world) and TranScreen: Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

This provides theoretical space for this book on the Trans New Wave to contribute new research and empirical evidence to the field. This research recognises that trans filmmaking has overflowed from the early subcultural origins, into all styles of trans and gender-diverse films and that the Trans New Wave has truly arrived, with specific films and filmmakers now recognised within the screen industry. This became apparent in 2012 at the Sundance Film Festival with the premiere of trans-narrative short film The Thing (Rhys Ernst, USA, 2011), twenty years after New Queer Cinema (Rich 1992a, 1992b, 2013) had come to wider public attention at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival. In 2020, Sundance continued as a site of significance in trans cinematic history with the World Premiere of feature documentary