32nd Annual MILWAUKEE LGBT FILM/VIDEO FESTIVAL presents

THEY
directed by Anahita Ghazvinizadeh
(US/Qatar, 80min., 2017)

J is exploring their gender identity while taking hormone blockers to postpone puberty. They are 14 and live with their parents in the suburbs of Chicago. After two years of medication and therapy, J has to make a decision whether or not to transition.

Over this crucial weekend while their parents are away, J’s sister Lauren and her Iranian friend/partner Araz arrive to babysit, hang out, and keep company.

A fluidly and successfully naturalistic film with a soundtrack sharply constructed and alert, Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s feature debut is a marvel of attention that accumulates into loyalty and feeling. The film honors its central character with an impressive seriousness without ever resorting to any exploitaiton or conjuring of trauma. Like its central character, THEY is sensitive, attentive, winningly engaged and strikingly commanding.

+++++++

“In Anahita Ghazvinizadeh’s lovely, understated feature, J (Rhys Fehrenbacher) is in the midst of transitioning from male to female but has chosen to delay puberty, leading to an odd sense of displacement to go along with all the other problems of being a kid. But this isn’t so much a movie about gender dysmorphia as it is about life in an in-between state — even as J looks to find a place in the world, their sister’s boyfriend’s Iranian family struggles with a different kind of uprooting. A bewitching little movie, with a haunting central performance by Fehrenbacher, a young performer who is transitioning from female to male.”
— Bilge Ebiri, “The 12 Best Movies at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Village Voice, June 2, 2017

TRAILER

+++++++
Admisson, tickets available at door.
UWM Union Cinema Box Office Open 30min. prior to showtime

$5 General
FREE for students

Festival passes available:
See all of the 2017 Festival for only $50!

++++++

The 32nd Annual Milwaukee LGBT Film/Video Festival is presented by the Department of Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres and is made possible thanks to our generous sponsors, who include UWM Union Programming; Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Eldon E. Murray Fund; Milwaukee Pride; Joseph R. Pabst; Richard Kaul; Burbach & Stansbury S.C., Attorneys at Law; Cream City Foundation’s Sutton Place Fund & Valentine Fund; Planned Parenthood; BESTD Clinic; Northwestern Mutual; AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin; and many other generous businesses, community groups, and individuals.