LES ROIS BATISSEURS LOUIS XIV 

Despite the film’s efforts to reframe its heroine with modern complexity, a certain emotional distance lingers.

The way Jeannette has to deal with child neglect makes her insecure about her parents and how she was brought up and raised in the United States. This continues into adulthood, where Jeannette becomes a successful journalist and is frequently asked about her parents by others.

In The Women and the Murderer, directors Mona Achache and Patricia Tourancheau center women—the very demographic true crime is designed to appeal to.

“And I think to myself….what a wonderful world”. Louis Armstrong sang about this notion via his classic 1967 song, an ode to witnessing elements of our life that should be but some reminders of exactly what that concluding line of each verse indicates. Now we see our contemporary realities and, just being honest, it makes a sentiment like this seem SO overtly far away….perhaps even impossible….to accept or believe could be. It sounds harsh, but again, so much of what is occurring speaks not to beauty, but bedlam.

The short documentary and second place winner of the Incluvie Short Film Festival, Gender Outlaw: A Bodysurfing Story, challenges any simplistic understanding of trans people.