Canadian trans filmmaker Chase Joynt can confidently leave this Sundance Film Festival clothing two awards, knowing he has been successful in a rare achievement. His sophomore feature-length documentary Framing Agnes is even better than his remarkable debut No Ordinary Man which he had co-directed with Aisling Chin-Yee.
Joynt, whose day job is as Professor of Gender Studies, uses this new movie to continue to look back at the significance of transgender history to not only show its relevance to the community today but also demonstrate how it helped shape the future. Even though at times the film can seem a tad too academic, that can be forgiven by the sheer empowerment it adds to the whole subject of gender politics. It also provides a much-needed teaching moment for those of us who represent the other letters in the LGBTQ+ spectrum and who are sadly too unaware of the reality of others that have to face so many more obstacles to be their true self.
Framing Agnes starts when Joynt and his research partner manage to get their hands on the complete files of Harold Garfinkel who conducted gender health research at UCLA in the 1950s. The film takes its name from a young trans woman, Agnes, who went through the research study and revealed how she duped the medical system to navigate her transgender existence.
The other case studies that Joynt uncovered also showed trans people who worked with Garfinkel often had to be selective as to what ‘truths’ they would share to enable them to transition. Discretion and secrecy was very much the order of the day. Interestingly enough Joynt set this all against the very high profile story of Christine Jorgensen who as the first known transgender figure in the US enthusiastically threw herself into the whole glare of publicity like the Hollywood star she wanted to be.
Joynt chose to tell Agnes’ story, and those of the other subjects of Garfinkel in a hybrid-doc style recreating the interviews in the style of a 1950s TV Chat show with an excellent cast of trans actors, playing the originals. He balanced this with also talking to the actors in their own persona discussing their own perception of the relevance of the characters they were playing. It was a clever move, particularly as his totally trans cast led by Zachery Drucker included Jen Richards, Stephen Ira, Kristen Schilt, Silas Howard, Max Wolf Valerio, and Angelica Ross.
Credit to Joynt for including the stories of two transmen as they are too often overlooked. More importantly, the tale of Angelica a self-assured trans woman of color that reminded us of the role she and her sisters played has always been so underestimated, even though throughout history sadly they have taken the brunt of the sheer violence aimed at the community
Joynt’s interviews were interspersed with an extremely fascinating commentary by the very articulate trans historian academic Jules Gill-Peterson who added a wealth of information that helped put so much into context.
Framing Agnes has remarkable fine production values that added to the wonderful visual created. Against this setting Joynt gently chips away on how being transgender is so widely misunderstood mainly by our sheer ignorance. His film continues an important message to dispel so many long help myths as it gives such dignity and grace as part of a continuing dialogue about the transgender community. ‘
It so needs to reach the widest audience it deserves
