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      ‘Casa Susanna’ Documentary Revisits Haven for Cross-Dressing

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      The documentary “Casa Susanna” explores the Catskills boardinghouse community that allowed denizens to express their identity when that was taboo.Sébastien Lifshitz’s documentary “Casa Susanna” remembers a community of cross-dressing men and transgender women who found refuge in the Catskills in the 1950s and ’60s. Their gathering place, a Victorian boardinghouse, was christened Casa Susanna after one of its founders, Susanna Valenti, a translator and broadcaster, who was married to Marie Tonell, a New York wig maker. The couple ran Casa Susanna until the late 1960s, but its existence came to broader awareness with the 2005 publication of a book collecting Casa Susanna snapshots that had been found in a New York flea market.Lifshitz, who is French, has been making movies about gender and identity since the early 2000s. “The story of Casa Susanna wasn’t supposed to be visible, or ‘out,’ so it is still a miracle that we are able to know the whole story today,” he said. He interviewed two alumnae, Katherine Cummings and Diana Merry-Shapiro, who shared their journeys and struggles, and revisited their stomping grounds in the Catskills. (A version of the house’s story was portrayed in “Casa Valentina,” a 2014 play by Harvey Fierstein.)I spoke with Lifshitz about making this documentary, which airs on PBS on Tuesday as part of “American Experience.” at a moment of increased visibility and turmoil around issues of identity. Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.Some of the photos came from a book project, while others were from the collection of Cindy Sherman.via the Art Gallery of Ontario and ArteHow did you first encounter Casa Susanna?The first time I heard of it was the publication of the book in 2005. I bought it then because I’m also a photo collector. For many years I’ve bought snapshots at flea markets and garage sales in France. I’ve been into queer pictures and all these invisible people since I was a kid. In 2015, I did a big exhibition with the photographs I was collecting on cross-dressing, and I talked with a photographer, Isabelle Bonnet, who had made a memoir about Casa Susanna. I said we should do a film about it [the documentary credits her as a collaborator], because it is a very important story about pre-queer culture, this underground network of cross-dressing.What struck you as special about Casa Susanna?The creation of this refuge was something extraordinary. If you had the desire to cross-dress, nothing around you could help you to understand it at the time. These very intimate questions were impossible to talk about with anybody else. Most of the men in the Casa Susanna community were white people from the middle class that had good jobs and a bit of money, and were married, some with kids. What is also fascinating is that this community was created with certain rules. For example, homosexuals or transsexuals were forbidden. They only accepted people who presented themselves as men who cross-dress. So it’s weird to think that, in a way, they had re-created conservative rules within this setup, probably because they were afraid.What was it like for Katherine and Diana to talk about their memories?It was very important to them because, as they say, it’s a part of who they were. For Diana, it was the first time that she was outing herself. She’s 82, but this is the first time that she could say to everyone, “This is my life. This is who I am.” Probably because she is this very mature age, she felt the need to be true with herself and all the people that are still around her. She also wanted to pay tribute to all the pioneers she met. And she should be proud, because she was very brave. What is also fascinating about Diana is that she had [gender confirmation surgery] when she was young, and from that moment, she became an invisible woman in American society. We were so lucky to find her and Kate. Kate died just a few months after the filming. That’s why all these invisible stories are so precious.For Betsy [Wollheim], it was the first time that she could tell the story of her father, Donald Wollheim. He was a science-fiction writer and publisher, but people didn’t know his secret story. I thought it was interesting to understand through Betsy what it was for a traditional American family to have a father as a cross-dresser and probably a transgender person. And through Gregory [Bagarozy], we see how he understood his grandma, Marie, and Susanna.The Casa Susanna guests followed a code of female representation that aimed for a “woman next door” feel. Collection of Cindy Sherman, via ArteWhere did you get the colorful Kodachrome photographs in the film?I had the pictures from the book, of course, which are now in the Art Gallery of Ontario. But a second part comes from the collection of Cindy Sherman. I knew that Cindy had pictures of Casa Susanna because she found an album in a flea market in New York. So I contacted her and she was really into it and said, of course you can use them. Cindy’s work is about Americana and stereotypes of representation in America, and she was fascinated by the way people are staging themselves in the pictures, because she stages herself. The way the men at Casa Susanna used female representation and respected a code in terms of clothes, they didn’t want to look like a pinup or a Hollywood queen. Most of them probably wanted to look like their mothers, sisters or wives. Like the woman next door, in a bourgeois way.A third source was the pictures that Betsy’s father had, because he was completely obsessed with questions of identity. He had all the documentation he could find at that time, and Betsy kept everything from his archives.How do you view this slice of American history in light of new anti-trans laws in this country?I am shocked that today you still can hear all these words against the transgender community. These are attitudes and words from another time, and I thought that it could never happen. We used to think that the civil rights that were won are for forever, but they are not. We need to be the guardians of these rights. Films, books, exhibitions and all these things are a way to educate and make people understand that identity is diverse, and this diversity is so important. In French we say richesse. It’s a treasure you need to protect. I love to see what makes you who you are. More

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      ‘The Stroll’ Review: Telling Their Own Stories

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      In this documentary, transgender sex workers speak for themselves without sanitizing or sensationalizing their experiences.At several points in “The Stroll,” Kristen Lovell and Zackary Drucker’s loving portrait of New York City’s transgender sex workers, moments of striking candor break through the conventions of documentary.An interviewee pauses warily in the middle of a conversation to check if it’s OK to reveal explicit details of her sex work, to which Lovell (who is transgender and a former prostitute herself) responds with, “Girl, you’re fine!” Later, as Lovell walks with another of the film’s subjects, Izzy, through the now-gentrified meatpacking district in Manhattan where they once both plied their trades, Izzy suddenly bursts into tears, interrupting the scene with a pained, “I can’t do this. I hate this place.”These scenes might have ended up on the cutting room floor in a different documentary. Here, their inclusion reinforces the novelty of “The Stroll”: It’s the rare movie that allows transgender sex workers to speak for themselves without sanitizing or sensationalizing their experiences.Lovell’s own story mirrors that of many of her interviewees, who include the ballroom icon Egyptt LaBeija and the activist Ceyenne Doroshow. (Drucker, a trans artist and activist, remains behind the camera.) Lovell ‌arrived in Manhattan as a teenager in the 1990s, seeking an escape from a hard life at home in Yonkers, ‌but she was fired from her coffee shop job when she began transitioning. So she turned to “the stroll”: a stretch of West 14th Street that cut through a blood-splattered neighborhood of meatpackers, and offered a haven for cruising gay men and transgender prostitutes. It allowed Lovell and her colleagues not just to make a living but also to find community — even a semblance of family.Inspired to take on the storytelling reins after being featured in a 2007 documentary, Lovell, along with Drucker, assembles interviews and archival images that sparkle with joy, banter and sorority, even as they detail brutality and precarity. What unfurls is a micro-history of New York: from the 1970s, with the city’s early gay rights movements (which often excluded transgender people), to the broken-windows policies of the ’90s and the economic fallout of Sept. 11, to the gentrification that began to sweep the city when Michael Bloomberg took office as mayor in 2002.As the city became seemingly safer, prettier and richer for some, its most vulnerable denizens paid a steep price. “I can’t believe how many times I had to go to jail for the Highline Park to be built,” Lovell says wryly. But if “The Stroll” is an indictment and elegy, it is also a remarkable document of the self-determination of the women and workers who learned, in the face of the worst odds, to fend for themselves and each other.The StrollNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      in Music

      Elton John Warns of ‘Growing Swell of Anger and Homophobia’ in U.S.

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      “We seem to be going backwards,” the pop superstar warned as he lamented the curtailing of L.G.B.T.Q. rights in the United States, particularly in Florida.The British pop superstar Elton John lamented the “growing swell of anger and homophobia” in the United States and described several laws recently passed in Florida that curtail L.G.B.T.Q. rights as “disgraceful.”“It’s all going pear-shaped in America,” John, a longtime leader for gay rights and visibility, said in an interview published Tuesday in Radio Times, in which he pointed to a rise in violent incidents and recent legislation curtailing rights. “We seem to be going backwards. And that spreads. It’s like a virus that the L.G.B.T.Q.+ movement is suffering.”More than 520 pieces of such legislation have been introduced in over 40 states this year, a record, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy group.“I don’t like it at all,” John said, referring to the increasingly hostile climate. “It’s a growing swell of anger and homophobia that’s around America.”John, 76, will headline Glastonbury, Britain’s biggest music festival, on Sunday, as his lengthy final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, heads toward its finale in Stockholm on July 8. The tour, which will have had over 330 dates, began in 2018 but was interrupted by the pandemic as well as John’s hip surgery.As he prepared to perform at Glastonbury, the last British date on the tour, John said that he did not know if the rising anti-L.G.B.T.Q. sentiment is as prevalent in Britain. “I don’t know if it’s around Britain, because I haven’t been here that much,” he said.But he called the scandal around the prominent British news anchor Phillip Schofield — who recently resigned after admitting he had a relationship with a younger man — “totally homophobic.”“If it was a straight guy in a fling with a young woman, it wouldn’t even make the papers,” John said.In the interview with Radio Times, John said he might eventually be open to doing a residency after his farewell tour ends, “but not in America.” That, his representatives said, is for the same reason that he had decided to stop touring: He wants to spend more time with his husband and children, who live in Britain.Last year, John — who objected to his songs being played at rallies for former President Donald J. Trump — performed at the Biden White House. “I just wish America could be more bipartisan,” John said as he sat at his piano. After his set, President Biden awarded John the National Humanities Medal. More

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      in Television

      ‘The Ultimatum: Queer Love’ Is a TV Rarity With Familiar Drama

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      Netflix’s latest dating reality show hit, which wrapped up on Wednesday, broke ground by focusing exclusively on queer and nonbinary couples.The finale of Netflix’s latest dating show hit, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” arrived on Wednesday after weeks of partner swapping that amounted to a milestone in romantic reality television: The first of the genre’s marriage contests that focused exclusively on queer couples.Like its predecessor, “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” from last year, “The Ultimatum: Queer Love,” which premiered in May, follows couples who don’t agree about their future together (one wants to get engaged; the other is not ready). So they agree to split up and live with new partners for a few weeks in front of the cameras. After meeting, dating and committing to a “trial wife,” the original couples reunite to live together as married, also for a few weeks. Then, after eight episodes worth of soul-searching, they must decide whether to get engaged, end the relationship or leave with their “trial wife” — the “ultimatum” of the title.“I feel like we’re at a lesbian club, and all our exes are here,” a castmate named Tiff Der joked in the first episode, sitting by the compound’s firepit surrounded by Der’s partner-turned-ex (for the purposes of the show), Mildred Woody, and the eight other contestants they each went on short dates with that day.In the same scene, another contestant, Vanessa Papa, suggests the cast all have a “polyamorous orgy,” drawing head shakes and nervous laughter from the others. By that point, Papa was interested in both Lexi Goldberg and Rae Cheung-Sutton while her ex, Xander Boger, was hitting it off with someone else’s former partner nearby.Same-sex marriage became federally recognized eight years ago, and it’s taken that long for L.G.B.T.Q. people to get their own dating show focused on love and commitment — though a number of queer-inclusive reality shows have demonstrated an appetite for such series. In earlier such shows, like the bisexual-themed competition “A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila” (2007) and the all-pansexual season of MTV’s “Are You The One?” (2019), the focus was on the competition, not on lifelong commitment. In “Queer Love,” which wrapped up Wednesday with a final episode and reunion special, the only prize is the clarity gained from such an experiment, the first in which men are not potential partners.“The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On” hadn’t aired yet when the cast of the spinoff began filming, so the five couples who appeared in “Queer Love” had little sense of how the show would unfold. All they had to go on was the track record of the show’s production company, Kinetic Content, which is also behind the Netflix reality hit “Love is Blind,” as well as the long-running “Married at First Sight,” on Lifetime in recent years.In many ways, “Queer Love” is reminiscent of any other marriage reality show — their struggles and triumphs with their partners (trial and otherwise) are not unlike those experienced by “Love Is Blind” competitors after they emerge from their pods and pair off. Commitment angst and the allure of potential new partners are reliable generators of the interpersonal drama that reality producers crave, no matter the makeup of the couples involved.“It was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world,” said Mal Wright, left, with Yoly Rojas in “The Ultimatum: Queer Love.”Netflix
      Der and Woody had been in a breakup-makeup-breakup cycle for almost two years, Der said, when they were approached by a casting producer about participating in “Queer Love.”“I actually said no at first because I’m like, ‘Actually, we’re in a really bad spot right now, so I don’t think so, I’m sorry,’” Der said in an interview. “And then she goes, ‘No, actually that’s what we’re looking for.’”Goldberg said she was approached at just the right time in her relationship with her partner, Cheung-Sutton. “It was kind of this question of, do you have a relationship where one person is questioning or dragging their feet?” she said.As universal as relationship frustrations can be, “Queer Love” also captures the specific ways queer women and nonbinary people relate to one another — for example, spending time with one another’s exes, whether intentional or not, is common in such a small community. For straight viewers, the show serves as a kind of voyeuristic microcosm; for queer ones, it provides a more relatable analog to the messy behavior of heterosexual dating shows like “The Bachelor” or “Love Is Blind.”Cast members, who ranged in age from 25 to 42 when they filmed, said they were encouraged by the production’s general queer competency — several crew members on set were L.G.B.T.Q., including the director of photography — but some noted blind spots. Yoly Rojas, a first-generation Venezuelan immigrant, said she was excited to be “a brown Latina femme on television,” but she was disappointed that her partner, Mal Wright, was the only Black person in the cast.“I don’t think that’s a fair representation of the community,” Rojas said. “It just felt still a little bit whiter than what I would’ve liked.”Wright initially was concerned about being portrayed as an aggressor — a common TV fate for butch and more masculine-of-center women or nonbinary people. “I didn’t want to be portrayed in a way that wasn’t true to me,” Wright said.But after watching the full season, Wright, who uses they/them pronouns, felt reassured: “There was no angry trope that got attached to me,” they said. “So it was a real accurate representation of who I am and how I navigate the world.”One of the show’s stranger moves — and probably its most controversial one — was its choice of host. Nick and Vanessa Lachey co-host both “Love is Blind” and “The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On,” but for “Queer Love,” Netflix brought in the actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher, a star of its show “Sweet Magnolias.” When Garcia Swisher is revealed as the host in the first episode, the cast appears surprised. It is Papa who finally pops the question: “Are you queer?”“I just wanted to know,” Papa, a fan of Garcia Swisher’s recurring role on her favorite show, “Freaks and Geeks,” said in an interview. “But she’s not, which is also great because now you have this mix of a queer cast and then this religious married-to-a-man host, so it’s like two worlds converging.”Other cast members were confused by the choice.“It took me a minute to warm up with Joanna because I didn’t get it,” Rojas said. “There’s no correlation to anything gay or to anything queer — like, it made no sense. But she’s a really sweet person, as understanding as one can be as a straight woman. She did her best.”Chris Coelen, an executive producer of the show, said Garcia Swisher had the most important quality for a host: curiosity. “Is JoAnna queer?” he said. “No, she’s not. Does she need to be to do a good job on show? I don’t think so.”The show puzzled some cast members and viewers by hiring a straight host, JoAnna Garcia Swisher.NetflixViewers of the show called out the strangeness of the hosting choice on social media. But overall “Queer Love” has been well-received and highly memed — praised by writers and viewers for giving queer women and nonbinary people a chance to see their own relationships reflected on an enormous platform like Netflix.“It’s all pretty standard reality show stuff,” Emma Specter wrote in Vogue. “But I wonder what it would have meant for me to watch 10 queer people date, break up, cry, have fun and drink disgusting-looking cocktails out of weird chrome glasses on TV in high school, when there were approximately zero out queer people in my actual life.”For the “Queer Love” cast, their appearances on the show came with a feeling of responsibility to not embarrass communities that historically have been ignored or misrepresented on TV. Goldberg, the youngest castmate, said the weight of the contestants displaying themselves in such a public way was palpable from their first group gathering.“It was kind of this unspoken thing,” Goldberg said. “Not that the stakes were higher, but that the importance of being good representatives was something we should consider day in and day out.”“But it doesn’t mean we don’t get to have relationships and feel and cry and deal with problems the way they arise,” Goldberg continued. “It just meant we do have to remember that this is important, and that there will be a lot of people that watch this and that look to this as a sense of normalcy in queer relationships that maybe they just never knew before.”Coelen, the executive producer, hopes “Queer Love,” in both its relatability and specificity, “lowers barriers between people in some way.”“Because people are people,” he continued. “And, like the ‌cliché, love is love, you know?” More

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      Book Review: ‘Pageboy: A Memoir,’ by Elliot Page

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      In the “brutally honest” memoir “Pageboy,” the actor recounts the fears and obstacles to gender transition, and the hard-won happiness that’s followed.PAGEBOY: A Memoir, by Elliot PageThere’s a scene in the third season of Netflix’s hugely popular “The Umbrella Academy” where Elliot Page’s character, sporting a new, short haircut, walks up to the other members of the titular superhero team to suggest a plan.There’s a derisive response from one of them: “Who elected you, Vanya?”Page glances around, slightly tentative. “It’s, uh, Viktor.”“Who’s Viktor?”The subtitles describe “dramatic music playing” as members of the group eye one another. Page hesitates for a second. “I am. It’s who I’ve always been.” Another beat. “Uh, is that an issue for anyone?”There’s little hesitation: “Nah, I’m good with it.” “Yeah, me too.” “Cool.”And thus plays out what might be the most mundane — and yet quietly empowering — depiction of gender transition in popular culture I’ve ever seen. Were Page’s real-life journey to transition only as simple, straightforward or well received.Instead, as he details in a brutally honest memoir, “Pageboy,” his life story was marked by fear, self-doubt, U-turns, guilt and shame, before he ultimately seized control of his own narrative.A child actor from Canada who burst onto the scene at the age of 20 with a breakout performance in the title role of “Juno” in 2007, Page went on to take roles in films that ranged from indie (“Whip It,” “Freeheld”) to blockbusters (“Inception,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past”).But fame didn’t free him to explore his identity; instead it trapped him into a role studios wanted him to play, offscreen as well as on, as an attractive young starlet.Much of the memoir — told in non-sequential flashbacks and flash-forwards — centers on Page’s path to understand who he really was, against a backdrop of bullying, eating disorders, stalking, sexual harassment and assault. Page grew up in Nova Scotia, the child of divorced parents — a less than loving father and a mother hoping against hope for a more conventional child than the gender outlaw she seemed to be raising.“Can I be a boy?” Page asked his mother at the age of 6. He found escape in solitary play and a rich fantasy life that ultimately blossomed into a career as an actor.The nonlinear structure makes following a clear narrative difficult, but that’s less important than seeing, through his eyes, how Page slowly pieces together a clear sense of himself. In that, it follows a tradition of trans memoirs, from Jennifer Finney Boylan’s “She’s Not There” to Janet Mock’s “Redefining Realness” to Thomas Page McBee’s “Man Alive,” among others, that explore how we explore our identities.From furtive, closeted relationships — he relates how he held hands under a blanket with his then-partner as they were bused from location to location while working on a film together — to coming out as gay in 2014 (“more a necessity than a decision,” he writes), Page flirted with, but backed away several times from, the notion that he might be trans.“My shoulders opened, my heart was bare, I could be in the world in ways that felt impossible before,” he writes of coming out as gay. “But deep down an emptiness lurked. That undertone. Its whisper still ripe and in my ear.”It’s in that tortured, contradictory internal monologue — familiar to other trans people as we contemplate what seems to be an extraordinary, unimaginable truth — that “Pageboy” is most powerful. Page doesn’t really delve into questions of masculinity, or what it means to be a man, but he brings to life the visceral sense of gender dysphoria, or at least one type of dysphoria: the sense that your body is betraying you. It’s an utterly alien sensation for those who haven’t experienced it:Imagine the most uncomfortable, mortifying thing you could wear. You squirm in your skin. It’s tight, you want to peel it from your body, tear it off, but you can’t. Day in and day out. And if people are to learn what is underneath, who you are without all that pain, the shame would come flooding out, too much to hold. The voice was right, you deserve the humiliation. You are an abomination. You are too emotional. You are not real.Moments of joy pierce “Pageboy” as well: his first real queer kiss; scenes of passionate sex; the blossoming of his relationship with his mother after he came out; the reflection of his flat chest in the mirror.Page disclosed his transition in December 2020, a few weeks before I did the same. I suspect he, like me, had been prepared for a future where trans lives would be broadly accepted, or at least tolerated, albeit with sporadic incidents of hate. Both of us inhabit left-leaning spaces (media, movies) where the appearance of support is de rigueur.How could we have expected instead the tidal wave of anti-trans animus that is surging across the right, with hundreds of bills proposed — and some passed — in state legislatures that would in some cases bar adults from accessing trans care; undermine private insurance; allow medical personnel to discriminate against transgender patients; and restrict performances by drag performers and trans people, including possibly Page.Trans men and women are attacked in very different ways. Trans women are demonized as sexual predators; trans men, when people think of them at all, are portrayed as misguided and misled girls and women, confused and unable to understand their own identity. “When I came out in 2014, the vast majority of people believed me, they did not ask for proof,” Page writes. “But the hate and backlash I received were nothing compared to now.”It was an unwelcome regression to a time studios controlled his public persona: “I am sick of the creepy focus on my body and compulsion to infantilize (which I have always experienced, but nothing like this). And it isn’t just people online, or on the street, or strangers at a party, but good acquaintances and friends.”Still, Page has no shortage of fans as well, vociferous defenders of possibly the most famous trans man in the world, and one whose onscreen portrayal of a superhero offers an alternative conception of masculinity rooted in inner strength and sensitivity rather than brawn and muscles.His character’s arc from Vanya to Viktor offers hope, too, of a world where transition is matter-of-fact, accepted — and incidental. “Truly happy for you, Viktor,” another “Umbrella Academy” member concludes.Page and the showrunner Steven Blackman were at pains to ensure his character’s journey reflected the nuances of real trans lives, not least that being trans was a character trait, not the defining one. They brought in McBee to weave an authentic narrative into what was then an already tightly packed and carefully scripted season.In the memoir, Page reflects on his complex relationship with store windows, and his image in them — a reminder, pre-transition, of a body and identity he saw but did not want to inhabit. McBee crafted that memory into another telling “Umbrella Academy” scene, where Page’s Viktor pauses in front of a storefront and is asked what he sees.“Me.” A smile and a shrug. “Just me.”Truly happy for you, Elliot.Gina Chua is the executive editor at Semafor.PAGEBOY: A Memoir | By Elliot Page | 271 pp. | Flatiron Books | $29.99 More

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      in Movies

      ‘Queens of the Qing Dynasty’ Review: Secret Soul Mates

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      When a young woman hospitalized after a suicide attempt forms a bond with an international student, they create a different kind of relationship.The wonderfully bizarre Canadian drama “Queens of the Qing Dynasty” understands queerness the way that bell hooks did: as a “self that is at odds with everything around it.” Directed by Ashley McKenzie like a dream — or a bout of dissociation — the film is a love story, absent sex or romance, about a teenage psychiatric patient in Nova Scotia, Star (Sarah Walker), and a Shanghainese exchange student volunteering at the hospital, An (Ziyin Zheng). The pair make an odd couple, and yet their bond is intuitive, electric.The story kicks off in the aftermath of Star’s suicide attempt, the film’s tone at once bleakly clinical and deadpan absurd. Star, a neurodivergent foster kid with a sardonic sense of humor, clearly doesn’t register the gravity of her actions. Eyes glazed, she seems out of touch with her own body, and she’s not one for rules, like when she’s kicked out of an apartment for opening it to partiers. Eventually, she is institutionalized.Walker, captivatingly raw, makes Star both charming and frustrating in her aloofness. The cinematographer Scott Moore shoots in close-ups that blur at the edges, while the eerie sound design by Andreas Mendritzki gives the frosty Cape Breton location the feel of life on Mars, approximating Star’s dazed point of view.An, a poised international student with bladelike long nails, dreams of transitioning, and — through a kind of buddy system — connects with Star, regaling her with stories of ancient Chinese courtesans, scheming, glamorous dames who never have to work. The two communicate by text: An sends singing videos with their face prettified by a filter; Star, a stream-of-consciousness barrage of messages and voice mail messages that usually go unacknowledged. She doesn’t seem to mind and An isn’t driven away by them, either. They part and reunite and part again.Estranged from their communities, the two embody a different kind of relationship, and McKenzie doesn’t rely on the usual uplifting messaging and strained empowerment arc to humanize An and Star. In one beautifully uncanny scene, the duo stop by a virtual reality gaming studio and, equipped with headsets, plug into the fantasy, playing as flying sorcerers as they shoot the breeze. Their friendship remains mysterious, yet the film, as if by witchcraft, makes their connection feel palpable and true.Queens of the Qing DynastyNot rated. In English, Mandarin and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hour 2 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Joyland,’ an L.G.B.T. Pakistani Film, Is Celebrated Abroad

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      Saim Sadiq’s feature “Joyland,” which includes a transgender woman’s love affair, cannot be shown in Pakistan’s Punjab Province.Over the past year, the writer-director Saim Sadiq has garnered a series of unprecedented accolades for Pakistani cinema.Last May, his debut film, “Joyland,” out Friday, became the first production from Pakistan to compete in the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the jury prize in the Un Certain Regard sidebar. It was also the first entry from the country to be shortlisted for the best international feature film Oscar. And just last month, it emerged as the first Pakistani title to win at the Film Independent Spirit Awards in the same category.The project also counts among its executive producers the Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai, the Oscar-winning British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed and the Iranian American director Ramin Bahrani.But despite this international recognition and notable support, “Joyland,” which features characters defying traditional binary gender norms, remains banned in Sadiq’s hometown of Lahore, and in the entire Punjab Province, which houses the majority of Pakistan’s cinemas and about half of the Islamic nation’s entire population.“I wanted the film to play in Pakistani theaters more than anything else,” said an impassioned Sadiq, 32, during a recent interview at the Los Angeles home of the movie’s Indian-born producer, Apoorva Charan.Sadiq and Charan met while both were studying at Columbia University. It was during their time there that Sadiq began writing “Joyland,” a coming-of-age story told as an intricate ensemble piece, as a screenwriting class assignment.When Haider starts working as a backup dancer, he must keep his new source of income, and outlet for self-expression, a secret.Oscilloscope LaboratoriesWhen Haider (Ali Junejo), a mild-mannered young man in an arranged marriage, lands a job as a backup dancer for Biba (Alina Khan), a strong-willed transgender performer, his wife, Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq), quits her job against her will to help out with the domestic tasks Haider was doing before, including caring for his brother’s children.But Haider must keep his new source of income, and outlet for self-expression, a secret, as the couple live in an extended family household under the rule of Haider’s traditional elderly father. That Haider explores his sexuality with Biba further complicates his situation.To challenge the Hollywood notion of the sole protagonist, Sadiq said he wanted to understand “the collective human experience. It was very important to make this a very collectivist film, a film which was truly an ensemble film where the effect of one person’s actions on other people were also taken into account from their perspective.”That “Joyland,” among its many themes, includes a burgeoning romance between a trans woman and a straight-identifying man caused public outcry from Pakistan’s conservative factions on social media just a few days before the film’s scheduled November local release date.The seismic controversy led to the film’s ban, even after Sadiq had diligently obtained the required permits from each of the three separate censor boards in the country: those pertinent to the provinces of Punjab and Sindh, plus the federal board that covers the rest of the territory.In order to appease them, Sadiq had already compromised the artistic integrity of his work.Clockwise from upper left, Farooq, Junejo, Sadiq and Khan in Los Angeles in March.Elizabeth WeinbergFirst, the director was asked to remove two intimate scenes that the censors unsurprisingly deemed too risqué. Sadiq had anticipated these moments would not meet their parameters, so he had shot alternate versions so that the narrative could still run coherently in the eventual Pakistani version. However, more changes were demanded.“What I wasn’t prepared for was a bunch of laughably random cuts and dialogue omissions that were asked for by the federal and Punjab censor boards, which included blurring the shot of a platonic hug between a husband and wife on a rooftop,” Sadiq said.Censorship is unfortunately a cornerstone of Pakistan’s relationship with cinema, said Ali Khan, co-author of the book “Cinema and Society: Film and Social Change in Pakistan,” in a recent video interview.In 1954, “Roohi,” directed by W.Z. Ahmed, became the first film banned in an independent Pakistan for its perceived socialist agenda. Since then, and across the multiple political transitions the nation has undergone, creative freedom has often been hindered. Only about a dozen feature films, mostly commercial fare, are produced in Pakistan each year.“There are so many stories to tell from Pakistan, but how do you do that if everything is controversial?” Ali Kahn said. “It’s really unfortunate that we are not able to support our own films because of this paranoia over how the country is being depicted.”While some Pakistani productions may have had instances of subtle, implied queerness in the past, Sadiq believes there hadn’t been a film that overtly engaged with gender and sexual diversity in Pakistan before “Joyland.”Fortunately, the international attention “Joyland” had already received abroad, as well as a flood of vocal tweets from the filmmaker and his allies denouncing the decision, exerted enough pressure that the edited iteration was allowed to be screened in the Sindh province and the territory under the federal censor board (which includes the capital city of Islamabad).But the authorities in Punjab opted to uphold the ban.Junejo and Khan in a scene from the film. The plotline around their characters’ love affair caused public outcry from Pakistan’s conservative factions on social media.Oscilloscope LaboratoriesFor Khan, a dancer turned actress who first collaborated with Sadiq on the short film “Darling,” the news that her work wouldn’t be seen in Lahore was devastating.“I needed the film to play in my city so that the people who have wronged me there for being trans could see me in a more human light,” she said, speaking in Urdu with Sadiq acting as her interpreter. “And I wanted to show my community that it is possible for a trans person to make something out of their life.”Although Pakistan passed a bill protecting the rights of transgender citizens in 2018, violence, including murder, against trans people in the country remains an alarming issue. Since the law came into existence, homicides of transgender people have increased, with 14 people killed last year, according to the Trans Murder Monitoring project.The rest of Sadiq’s cast were also aware of the significance of the story they were sharing. Junejo, for example, came on board after other actors rejected the part because of its subject matter. Even the sensitive way Haider uses his body when dancing is cause for concern in an environment where masculinity is harshly policed.“It was important that we were making it in Pakistan because its patriarchal society demands certain roles from every one of its members, men included,” Junejo said.In turn, Farooq believes that one of the most remarkable outcomes of the film’s toilsome journey in Pakistan are the conversations that both detractors as well as defenders are having about the purpose of art in general and of filmmaking in particular.“Pakistani viewers who had for long been turned into passive consumers of TV or film were all of a sudden actively talking about the role of art in their lives,” Farooq said. “It’s not the job of films to placate you. Films can talk about things that are uncomfortable.”Months after the film’s partial theatrical release, heated online discussions over “Joyland” continue, especially when anyone of note in Pakistan publicly comments on it.For his part, Sadiq holds on to the film’s hard-fought victories in the face of the restrictions.Embattled as his work might be in the place of his birth, the director finds invigorating encouragement in learning that other people, in Pakistan and elsewhere, have embraced it.“Once the film was finished, I understood I had initially done it out of selfish reasons,” he said. “But now it means something to others, and it means something to the world even if in a small way, so I need to do right by it and push for it to be seen.” More

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      in Theater

      In ‘Public Obscenities,’ the Transgender Activist Tashnuva Anan Makes Her New York Debut

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      Tashnuva Anan Shishir, who became her country’s first transgender news anchor in 2021, is performing in “Public Obscenities” at Soho Rep.When Shayok Misha Chowdhury wrote the character of Shou for his new bilingual play, “Public Obscenities,” about a couple who interviews queer locals in Kolkata, India, he was “super worried” about casting the role. The performer would not only need to be of the appropriate gender but also a Bangla speaker with the right “linguistic fluency” to capture the character, who speaks “exuberantly and forthrightly and confidently,” he told me recently.Shou identifies as kothi, an Indian gender that encompasses a breadth of expressions, Chowdhury said. So he reached out to a friend for advice: Debanuj DasGupta, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who is “very in the sort of Bangali queer and trans space.” After the professor mentioned Tashnuva Anan Shishir, Chowdhury searched her name online, and several questions came into his head: Is she even in New York? Would she be interested in auditioning?When he posted a casting call on Instagram, and Anan responded, a plan started to coalesce. She was in New York, performing in Queens, in “I Shakuntala,” a play by Golam Sarwar Harun and Gargi Mukherjee, a married couple who would also go on to star in “Public Obscenities.” Anan’s role was small, but she “stole the show,” Chowdhury said.After she auditioned for his play, it was practically unanimous, he said: “We have found the person.” While Shou doesn’t appear until 50 minutes into “Public Obscenities” — its run at Soho Rep (in a coproduction with the National Asian American Theater Company) has been extended through April 16 — the character has been among its most memorable.In “Public Obscenities,” Anan, center, plays a scene-stealing interview subject, our critic wrote in a review of Shayok Misha Chowdhury’s play.Julieta CervantesIn March 2021, Anan made history as the first transgender news anchor in Bangladesh. For three minutes, on International Women’s Day, she spoke on the air and was seen by millions of her compatriots. She went on to anchor occasionally for the network, Boishakhi TV, through November 2021.In December of that year, she came to New York, her first time in the United States. Her trip was primarily to receive care related to what she calls her transformation. And while here, professional opportunities have arisen: Last year she became the first transgender model from Bangladesh to walk in New York Fashion Week.Anan, 31, grew up in a conservative Muslim family and has had a grueling journey to this point. She has endured relentless harassment and survived suicide attempts; been shunned by family members, including her father; and lived penniless in a slum.“I really wanted to be an actress,” Anan, who performed in theater in South Asia and in a small Bangla film, “Kosai,” told me recently in a video interview. “People shouldn’t be considered by their gender. People should acknowledge their work. People should acknowledge their skill.” Being a news anchor in Bangladesh was eye-opening, she said, but it couldn’t quite open up the world for her like the United States could. “I was feeling that I have to swim. So I should swim in the ocean, not in a pond, not in a river. So if I can achieve, I can achieve. If not, then not.”Here are excerpts from our conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity.“I had to pay a lot. I had to leave my family to prove my identity,” Anan said.Desmond Picotte for The New York TimesHow has life in New York been for you?It’s a lot of adaptation. I’m born and raised in a village, not a city. The city is highly competitive, but I like this competition. Being an activist, this is a great eye-opening for me to learning, to adapting to each other, to teaching how is the activism going on. When I was in Bangladesh, I was working in a national level. Now I’m in New York, and I’m working globally. I’m contributing internationally. So this is a good opportunity for me.You’ve shown remarkable perseverance. What gives you strength?For myself, that I believe: Do your own job. Just do hard work. There is no shortcut in life. Just believe in yourself. And just, first, inspire yourself. I have competition only with myself, because I’m trying to do a little bit better than yesterday.Why do you think Shou has been so memorable to audiences?Shou is intelligent, Shou is extra-talented, an extrovert, and Shou knows actually about this scenario: the situation of queer people, queer activism, especially in Kolkata, Bangladesh, Pakistan. So Shou is charming everyone. Shou is connected with everyone.Shou is very common character in South Asia because Shou is kind of a feminine guy, so Shou would like to wear femininity in her body or in their body. So this feminine guy represents South Asian queer community also.How do you see yourself in this character and how are you different?Tashnuva bold, Tashnuva sexy, Tashnuva brave, Tashnuva iconic — and the brand I created, I had to pay a lot. I had to leave my family to prove my identity. Shou is also powerful. Shou is also entertaining. Shou is also jolly. Shou is also friendly. Tashnuva is sometimes moody, because people can consider my self-esteem or people can consider my self-respect as an ego, but I had to maintain it. But Shou doesn’t have that; Shou is more friendly.When I get confirmation from my team, I was a little bit tense actually, because, see, I have long hair, and the show is going to put, like, a wig. Then I asked Misha, “Should I cut my hair? I can’t!”First time, when I watched myself with that wig, with proper costume, I was so low — believe me, I was so low. I didn’t feel well because still, then, I didn’t believe Shou. So I was trying to just discover what was going on. Now, I literally fall in love with that wig. Yeah, this is me, this is Shou.How has the reception been from South Asian audiences?Oh my God, they appreciate a lot. They were looking at their sorrows in front of them. They’re looking at their life in front of them, through Shou’s eyes. I got lots of messages from my friends — “Tashnuva, you’re doing really well because this is not doing acting, this is very natural.” I wanted to be a natural actor. I want to play a character that should be more natural, that should be believable. I really believe when I am doing something, people should believe.Last night, when I’m coming toward audience, a girl literally was crying, and she was from Bangladesh, and she born and raised here. She only heard me by social media, and this is the first time we get connected in person. And she was telling me, “Tashnuva, this is the story that we know but we couldn’t tell in front of people.”What’s next for you?I don’t like to say my dream because people are always critics. So I love to keep my dream inside. I am looking for opportunities to act more. So I think now, just now, after this project, I want to jump into another project. There I can play a more powerful character. There I can say another story. I don’t want to pursue any character that is very common.When I think about performance — light, camera, action — I love Broadway performance. Today and tomorrow, is my dream that I will perform in Broadway, or I will perform in a Hollywood film. When I start working, I just forget my every pain. I just forget everything. And this is the performance that inspired me a lot, that did a lot for me. More