The new documentary “Heightened Scrutiny” comes at a crucial time, as politicians and pundits continue to sow division by ramping up attacks on trans issues and gender-affirming care.
Directed by Sam Feder (“Disclosure”) and showing in this year’s Wicked Queer film festival (April 4–13), “Heightened Security” follows ACLU lawyer and Massachusetts native Chase Strangio as he prepares the argue the case of LW. v. Skrmetti before the US Supreme Court in December 2024. This case challenges Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth and marked the first time that an openly transgender person made oral arguments before the Supreme Court. A decision is expected in June 2025.
Strangio, who attended law school at Northeastern University and lives in New York, is the engaging focus of “Heightened Security” as the film presents his life and legal work in the context of the current political climate. With LGBTQ+ rights under attack, it’s fitting that Wicked Queer’s theme this year is “Community and resistance: stronger together,” says Executive Director Shawn Cotter, who is planning post-screening discussions and pop-up events for audiences during the festival.
The 41st edition of Wicked Queer runs April 4–13 at area cinemas including the Brattle Theater, Coolidge Corner Theater, Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art and Emerson College. The festival’s total of 39 screenings including 13 programs of short films offer escape and engagement and they explore the range of LGBTQ+ life in all its complexities from many different parts of the world.
Another timely and compelling documentary in the festival is “I’m Your Venus” from acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kimberly Reed. It tracks the life and death of Venus Xtravaganza, who some may recall from Jennie Livingston’s landmark 1990 documentary “Paris is Burning.” Venus Xtravaganza is one of several New York City ballroom walkers featured in the film, but she never got to see the impact that it made once it was released. She was murdered in a motel room in December 1988 at just 23 years old.
Reed, a trans filmmaker, follows Venus’s biological family and her chosen family as the Pellagattis and the House of Xtravaganza join forces to have the unsolved case reopened. By seeking justice, those who loved Venus find some comfort and closure as well as renewed purpose since opening the cold case also brings attention to the many transwomen who shared Venus’s fate.
Reed returned to her native Montana last year to make “Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr,” a short film about Montana State legislator Zephyr. Distributed by The New Yorker, the film was featured in the 2024 Boston GlobeDocs film festival and was shortlisted for an Academy Award.
On a lighter note is Wicked Queer’s opening night film: director Allan Deberton’s romantic comedy from Brazil, “The Best Friend” (“O Melhor Amigo”). Based on Deberton’s 2013 short film of the same title, it is about two good friends who are reunited after five years. Although many things have changed in their lives, the reconnection awakens old feelings that the men are unprepared to handle.
Past, present and future intertwine in Swedish director Victoria Verseau’s deeply personal “Trans Memoria.” With a loose structure that reflects the nature of memory, Verseau recalls her meeting her friend Meril in 2012 in a Thailand hotel where they stayed before and after their gender-affirming surgery. Years later, Verseau returns to the hotel in an intimate remembrance of Meril, who has since died by suicide. Verseau contemplates friendship, what it means to be a trans woman, loss and death.
Two other notable films in this year’s festival are “Assembly,” which follows internationally acclaimed artist Rashaad Newsome as he embarks on an ambitious, multimedia exhibition and performance at New York’s historic Park Avenue Armory. Among his collaborators are Nekia, a Black trans woman, and the project’s many emotional highlights include a memorial for murdered Black trans women that evolves into a protest march.
In “Row of Life,” director Soraya Simi recounts how renowned ocean rower and Paralympian Angela Madsen attempted in 2020 to solo row, unassisted, across 2,500 miles of open ocean from Los Angeles to Hawaii. The film captures Madsen’s intense training with the support of her wife, Deb, in preparation for the feat of crossing the Pacific in her ocean rowing boat “Row of Life.”
If Madsen achieved her goal, she would have been, at 60, the oldest woman, first openly LGBTQ athlete, and only paraplegic ever to do so. But she never made it, abruptly disappearing from communications in June, two months into the solo journey. The film is both a testament to Madsen’s life and determination and to Simi’s own grief as she tries to process the tragedy and the trusting relationship she’d forged with Madsen as director and subject.
More: www.queer.film
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