Southern Comfort / Vera
Sun 8/20/2023 • 7PM PDT
Billy Wilder Theater
Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.
Southern Comfort
U.S., 2001
This acclaimed documentary follows the story of Robert Eads, a trans man dying of ovarian cancer. While indisputably a victim of systemic transphobia and medical malfeasance from the American healthcare system, Eads’ status as a trans elder among his chosen family shows him as the beating heart of an incredibly warm and life-affirming community. Southern Comfort, named for the then Atlanta-based national trans conference, presents the common struggles and common understandings among trans men in the 1990s with clear-eyed empathy by filmmaker Kate Davis.
Digital video, color, 90 min. Director: Kate Davis.
Vera
Brazil, 1986
Based on the life of Brazilian poet Anderson Bigode Herzer, who committed suicide at the age of 20, this intense drama tells the story of Bauer (Ana Beatriz Nogueira), a trans man who navigates a difficult life in an orphanage before finding love with a young librarian, Clara (Aida Leiner). A sympathetic professor sees his talent as a poet, but Bauer (the film’s title is his deadname) is mostly alone and misunderstood — proclaiming: “I’m not what everyone thinks I am. You hear me? I’m different. I’m something else.” One of the earliest portrayals in cinema of a transmasculine character.
Digital video, color, 88 min. Director: Sergio Toledo. Screenwriter: Sandra Mara Herzer, Sergio Toledo. With: Ana Beatriz Nogueira, Raul Cortez, Aida Leiner.