"Short Life Stories"

13 November 2023

2 mins 29s

Back to front.

This Canadian film urging empathy for our transgender brethren squeezes a big story into two and half minutes. To make its point, it reverses a familiar trope... often, a film like this will start by showing how miserable life can be when basic choices are challenged by those around us. And then it would go on to show how much life can improve when acceptance is finally attained.

But as this film so astutely observes, life is seldom that simple. The scenes at the start of this film as a trans woman is helped on her journey by accepting friends are utterly joyous, and the viewer is lulled into a false sense of security.

The violence that follows is implied rather than depicted, but it is nonetheless shocking, and a sharp reminder that trans women (and trans men) can be endangered by bigotry, especially in the current political climate where their very existence has become a touchstone issue for the far right.

Canada

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