The Thing

THIS IS ME docu-series is an anthology of five 3-5 minute-long TRANSPARENT-inspired documentaries by five different trans and gender-nonconforming filmmakers. Personal essays, direct actions, explainers - each filmmaker has crafted a segment that explores a theme in TRANSPARENT.

In this documentary, director Rhys Ernst tells the previously untold histories of transgender pioneers. Trans people have always been here, throughout time, often hidden in plain sight.

An LA family with serious boundary issues have their past and future unravel when a dramatic admission causes everyone's secrets to spill out.

Adam, an awkward teen, spends a summer with his older sister, who is part of New York City's lesbian and trans activist scene. He meets the girl of his dreams but can't figure out how to tell her he's not the trans man she thinks he is.

In the Secret Men's Club, a simple office exchange becomes a highly dramatized metaphor for exclusionary male culture, offering a sardonic critique for this ubiquitous but often invisible brotherhood.

Two middle-aged lesbian couples accidentally kill a younger girl and decide to cover it up. But their crime comes back to haunt them when an unexpected stranger appears in their lives, bringing tension and discord.

A transgender actor struggles with what it means to be seen after the beloved captain of his lesbian bowling league dies and a mysterious stranger shows up at the funeral.

With its non-linear structure, Zackary Drucker’s dreamlike Unison imagines phases of an always evolving trans identity existing simultaneously over an idyllic afternoon.

The story of Lou Sullivan, a transgender man and AIDS activist. Cutting VHS footage of Sullivan's trailblazing appearances on talk shows with contemporary screenshots of Grindr users' bewildered responses to the filmmaker's own trans status, Dear Lou Sullivan is a provocative text exploring trans visibility, then and now. Commissioned by Visual AIDS in 2014 as part of ALTERNATE ENDINGS, a program of seven videos that bring together charged moments and personal memories amidst the public history of HIV/AIDS.

The story of four transgender individuals across America who are fighting for rights and representation in a challenging and changing world.

Two youths bicker their way up the East Coast and through a discomforting and poignant transition into adulthood. Using still images, animation, Super-8 and an experimental score composed and performed by the filmmaker, The Drive North subverts the typical coming-of-age tale with social commentary, humor and an understated identity-politics slant. This savvy short demonstrates the skills of the next generation of media makers, seamlessly incorporating an astute sense of self-reflection, rebellion and family relationships.