In the opening moments of Transition, Jordan Bryon, the documentary’s subject and one of its directors, angles his face toward the camera. He moves in close and inspects his chin for hair. There are faint signs of growth, short whiskers that Bryon caresses as he speaks to us.
“My nerves are fucking shot,” he says, alluding to his current circumstances. “There are too many interwoven threads that are becoming very messy.” The precarious situation plaited by these threads is the subject of Bryon’s film, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Co-directed with journalist Monica Villamizar, Transition chronicles Bryon’s gender transition while embedded with a Taliban unit in Afghanistan. The stakes are high for the documentarian, who decided to stay in the country after the insurgents seized the city in August 2021.
Even before the takeover, Afghanistan was no haven for queer people: Same-sex relations were legally banned in 2017, for example.
“My nerves are fucking shot,” he says, alluding to his current circumstances. “There are too many interwoven threads that are becoming very messy.” The precarious situation plaited by these threads is the subject of Bryon’s film, which premiered at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Co-directed with journalist Monica Villamizar, Transition chronicles Bryon’s gender transition while embedded with a Taliban unit in Afghanistan. The stakes are high for the documentarian, who decided to stay in the country after the insurgents seized the city in August 2021.
Even before the takeover, Afghanistan was no haven for queer people: Same-sex relations were legally banned in 2017, for example.
- 6/9/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
“Seven Winters in Tehran,” about a 19-year-old Iranian woman sentenced to death for killing the man who tried to rape her, will open the 34th annual Human Rights Watch Film Festival on May 31 in New York City.
The festival, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center, will feature 10 documentaries about humanitarian challenges around the world. This year’s edition spotlights themes and topics including the Ukraine conflict (“When Spring Came to Bucha”), climate gentrification and justice (“Razing Liberty Square”), women’s rights (“Draw Me Egypt”) transgender rights (“Into My Name”) freedom of the press (“The Etilaat Roz”) and access to health care in the United States (“Pay or Die”).
“From the war in Ukraine to women’s rights and bodily autonomy, to environmental gentrification and freedom of the press, these films span some of the most pressing human rights issues of our time,” says John Biaggi,...
The festival, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the IFC Center, will feature 10 documentaries about humanitarian challenges around the world. This year’s edition spotlights themes and topics including the Ukraine conflict (“When Spring Came to Bucha”), climate gentrification and justice (“Razing Liberty Square”), women’s rights (“Draw Me Egypt”) transgender rights (“Into My Name”) freedom of the press (“The Etilaat Roz”) and access to health care in the United States (“Pay or Die”).
“From the war in Ukraine to women’s rights and bodily autonomy, to environmental gentrification and freedom of the press, these films span some of the most pressing human rights issues of our time,” says John Biaggi,...
- 4/27/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
Santa Barbara Film Festival To Open With Abigail Breslin Drama ‘Miranda’s Victim’ As Full Lineup Set
The Santa Barbara Film Festival has today unveiled the lineup for its 38th edition, taking place in-person from February 8-18.
The festival will open with the world premiere of the courtroom drama Miranda’s Victim, from director Michelle Danner. Pic tells the true story of Trish Weir (Abigail Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and brutally raped by Ernesto Miranda. Committed to putting her assailant in prison, Trish’s life is destroyed by America’s legal system as she triggers a law that transforms the nation. Ryan Phillippe, Luke Wilson, Donald Sutherland, Mireille Enos, Andy Garcia and more also star.
Closing out Sbiff 2023 is the Chandler Levack-directed I Like Movies, which makes its U.S. premiere. The film starring Isaiah Lehtinen, Romina D’Ugo, Krista Bridges and Percy Hynes White follows the socially inept, 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence (Lehtinen) as he gets a job at a video store, there forming a complicated...
The festival will open with the world premiere of the courtroom drama Miranda’s Victim, from director Michelle Danner. Pic tells the true story of Trish Weir (Abigail Breslin), who in 1963 was kidnapped and brutally raped by Ernesto Miranda. Committed to putting her assailant in prison, Trish’s life is destroyed by America’s legal system as she triggers a law that transforms the nation. Ryan Phillippe, Luke Wilson, Donald Sutherland, Mireille Enos, Andy Garcia and more also star.
Closing out Sbiff 2023 is the Chandler Levack-directed I Like Movies, which makes its U.S. premiere. The film starring Isaiah Lehtinen, Romina D’Ugo, Krista Bridges and Percy Hynes White follows the socially inept, 17-year-old cinephile Lawrence (Lehtinen) as he gets a job at a video store, there forming a complicated...
- 1/18/2023
- by Matt Grobar
- Deadline Film + TV
The Panorama prizes have been handed out at the Berlin International Film Festival, with top honours going to Baqyt (Happiness) and Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm (Love, Deutschmarks and Death).
Askar Uzabayev picked up the 24th Panorama Audience Award for best feature film for Baqyt, while Cem Kaya collected the Panorama Dokumente award for Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm.
The prizes were awarded by the Berlinale section Panorama, in partnership with radioeins and rbb television (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg). In all, 8000 cinema-goers’ votes were cast over the course of the Panorama section of the festival. The complete winners’ list is below.
In the film Baqyt, the main character is an orange-clothed influencer, whose brand is ‘Happiness’, contrasting with her dark and brutal home life. Judges said, “This film shows us what it costs to escape the trap of misogyny.”
Cem Kaya’s documentary essay celebrates 60 years of Turkish music in Germany, offering an alternative...
Askar Uzabayev picked up the 24th Panorama Audience Award for best feature film for Baqyt, while Cem Kaya collected the Panorama Dokumente award for Aşk, Mark ve Ölüm.
The prizes were awarded by the Berlinale section Panorama, in partnership with radioeins and rbb television (Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg). In all, 8000 cinema-goers’ votes were cast over the course of the Panorama section of the festival. The complete winners’ list is below.
In the film Baqyt, the main character is an orange-clothed influencer, whose brand is ‘Happiness’, contrasting with her dark and brutal home life. Judges said, “This film shows us what it costs to escape the trap of misogyny.”
Cem Kaya’s documentary essay celebrates 60 years of Turkish music in Germany, offering an alternative...
- 2/19/2022
- by Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
Call me by my name and I’ll call you by yours. That’s the genuine Italian sentiment at the heart of “Nel Mio Nome” (“Into My Name”), an impressionistic documentary about four trans-masculine friends living in and around Bologna in Northern Italy. Each with different perspectives, personalities, and interests, the film . Italian filmmaker Nicolò Bassetti consulted closely with his trans son throughout the filmmaking process, and a subtle but omnipresent of tenderness blankets the intimate scenes. He films his young subjects from a safe yet revealing distance: enough to see clearly but never so close as to put them on display.
It was this respectful approach that moved Elliot Page, who came on as an executive producer ahead ahead of the film’s premiere at the Berlinale, where it played the Panorama section. “What stands out to me about ‘Nel Mio Nome’ is the way it so artfully and...
It was this respectful approach that moved Elliot Page, who came on as an executive producer ahead ahead of the film’s premiere at the Berlinale, where it played the Panorama section. “What stands out to me about ‘Nel Mio Nome’ is the way it so artfully and...
- 2/18/2022
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
Italian multi-hyphenate Nicolò Bassetti is an urban planner and director, whose doc “Into My Name,” screening in Berlin’s Panorama Documentary section, provides an eye-opening look at the universal challenges of gender transition.
The doc features Nico, Leo, Andrea, and Raff, whose ages span from their mid-20s to mid-30s, and come from different parts of Italy. They start their gender transition at different times in their lives within a tight-knit group of friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
“Into My Name,” which is being supported by Elliot Page, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo. Bassetti spoke to Variety about how he was able to delve so deep into his doc’s subject matter. Edited excerpts from the conversation follow.
What was the starting point for “Into My Name”?
It all started four years ago, the night I received a letter from my son.
The doc features Nico, Leo, Andrea, and Raff, whose ages span from their mid-20s to mid-30s, and come from different parts of Italy. They start their gender transition at different times in their lives within a tight-knit group of friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
“Into My Name,” which is being supported by Elliot Page, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo. Bassetti spoke to Variety about how he was able to delve so deep into his doc’s subject matter. Edited excerpts from the conversation follow.
What was the starting point for “Into My Name”?
It all started four years ago, the night I received a letter from my son.
- 2/14/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Italy’s robust 2022 Berlinale representation of a half-dozen titles runs the gamut from the latest works by venerable veterans Paolo Taviani and Dario Argento to pics by fresh new Cinema Italiano voices including Chiara Bellosi, whose first film, “Ordinary Justice,” launched from Berlin in 2020.
Taviani, who is 91, is returning to Berlin but alone this time — his filmmaker brother, Vittorio, with whom he won a Golden Bear in 2012 for “Caesar Must Die,” passed away in 2018 — in competition with surreal drama “Leonora Addio,” inspired by a short story by Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello.
Argento, who set his 1977 chiller “Suspiria” in Germany, will be at the Berlinale for the first time as a director with Rome-set suspenser “Dark Glasses,” though he was on the fest’s main jury panel in 2001. Film unspools as a Berlinale Special Gala.
Bellosi is back with Panaorama selection “Swing Ride” (“Calcinculo”), about a 15-year-old named...
Taviani, who is 91, is returning to Berlin but alone this time — his filmmaker brother, Vittorio, with whom he won a Golden Bear in 2012 for “Caesar Must Die,” passed away in 2018 — in competition with surreal drama “Leonora Addio,” inspired by a short story by Italian playwright and author Luigi Pirandello.
Argento, who set his 1977 chiller “Suspiria” in Germany, will be at the Berlinale for the first time as a director with Rome-set suspenser “Dark Glasses,” though he was on the fest’s main jury panel in 2001. Film unspools as a Berlinale Special Gala.
Bellosi is back with Panaorama selection “Swing Ride” (“Calcinculo”), about a 15-year-old named...
- 2/13/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Tel-Aviv-based Cinephil, the sales company behind triple-Oscar nominated “Flee,” has snapped up world rights, excluding U.S., to Italian director Nicolò Bassetti’s transgender-themed doc “Into My Name,” which is executive-produced by Elliot Page.
UTA Independent Film Group will be handling North American rights.
The buzzy doc, which world-premieres at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama Documentary section, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo.
“Into My Name” provides an intimate look at the universal challenges of gender transition by observing a tight-knit group of trans friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
Cinephil managing director Olivier Tournaud in a statement said that he was “immediately taken” by Bassetti’s “sensitive and relatable exploration of the many facets of gender and even more so the love letter from a father to his son.”
“Into My Name is timely and spotlights voices...
UTA Independent Film Group will be handling North American rights.
The buzzy doc, which world-premieres at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama Documentary section, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo.
“Into My Name” provides an intimate look at the universal challenges of gender transition by observing a tight-knit group of trans friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
Cinephil managing director Olivier Tournaud in a statement said that he was “immediately taken” by Bassetti’s “sensitive and relatable exploration of the many facets of gender and even more so the love letter from a father to his son.”
“Into My Name is timely and spotlights voices...
- 2/11/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
French auteur Alain Guiraudie’s political drama “Nobody’s Hero” has been set as the opener of the 2022 Berlin Film Festival’s multifaceted Panorama strand, which has announced its full lineup.
The latest feature from Guiraudie, who is best known for his 2016 “Staying Vertical,” takes place in Clermont-Ferrand, central France, where a terrorist attack triggers some paranoid dynamics involving a young homeless man, a middle-aged sex worker and her married lover who have taken refuge in a building. The film’s cast comprises actor-director Noémie Lvovsky, Jean-Charles Clichet and Doria Tillier.
The ten-title Panorama Dokumente strand, which runs concurrently with the feature films, comprises previously announced transgender-themed doc “Nel Mio Nome” (“Into My Name”) by Italian director and producer Nicolò Bassetti. Elliot Page has come on board as executive producer to support the doc which observes gender transition from a female to a male identity of four characters within a...
The latest feature from Guiraudie, who is best known for his 2016 “Staying Vertical,” takes place in Clermont-Ferrand, central France, where a terrorist attack triggers some paranoid dynamics involving a young homeless man, a middle-aged sex worker and her married lover who have taken refuge in a building. The film’s cast comprises actor-director Noémie Lvovsky, Jean-Charles Clichet and Doria Tillier.
The ten-title Panorama Dokumente strand, which runs concurrently with the feature films, comprises previously announced transgender-themed doc “Nel Mio Nome” (“Into My Name”) by Italian director and producer Nicolò Bassetti. Elliot Page has come on board as executive producer to support the doc which observes gender transition from a female to a male identity of four characters within a...
- 1/18/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Actor, producer and activist Elliot Page has boarded 2022 Berlin Film Festival title Into My Name (Nel Mio Nome), directed by Italian filmmaker Nicolò Bassetti, as an executive producer.
The film, which premieres in Berlin’s Panorama program, is a feature documentary telling a coming-of-age story of four friends who share important turning points in their lives and in their gender transitions. The project is rooted in director Bassetti’s own experience with the transition of his son Matteo.
The protagonists of the doc are Nico, Leo, Andrea and Raff, a tight-knit group of friends in Bologna, Italy, all of whom start their gender journey from a female to a male identity at different times in their lives.
It is produced by Bassetti’s company Nuovi Paesaggi Urbani and Lucia Nicolai and Marcello Paolillo’s Art of Panic. Support came from the Regione Emilia Romagna film production fund. There is no sales agent attached.
The film, which premieres in Berlin’s Panorama program, is a feature documentary telling a coming-of-age story of four friends who share important turning points in their lives and in their gender transitions. The project is rooted in director Bassetti’s own experience with the transition of his son Matteo.
The protagonists of the doc are Nico, Leo, Andrea and Raff, a tight-knit group of friends in Bologna, Italy, all of whom start their gender journey from a female to a male identity at different times in their lives.
It is produced by Bassetti’s company Nuovi Paesaggi Urbani and Lucia Nicolai and Marcello Paolillo’s Art of Panic. Support came from the Regione Emilia Romagna film production fund. There is no sales agent attached.
- 1/17/2022
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
Elliot Page has boarded Berlin-bound transgender-themed doc “Nel Mio Nome” (“Into My Name”) by Italian director and producer Nicolò Bassetti as its executive producer.
The doc, which will world premiere during the upcoming Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama Dokumente section, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo.
“Into My Name” provides an intimate look at the universal challenges of gender transition by observing the transition within a tight-knit group of friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
The doc’s characters, Nico, Leo, Andrea, and Raff — whose ages span from their mid-20s to mid-30s — come from different parts of Italy, and start their gender transition from a female to a male identity at different times in their lives. Day by day, they boldly face all the obstacles of a strictly binary world. To achieve a fulfilling and dignified life is a matter of survival.
The doc, which will world premiere during the upcoming Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama Dokumente section, stems from Bassetti’s personal experience with the gender transition of his child, Matteo.
“Into My Name” provides an intimate look at the universal challenges of gender transition by observing the transition within a tight-knit group of friends in the central Italian city of Bologna.
The doc’s characters, Nico, Leo, Andrea, and Raff — whose ages span from their mid-20s to mid-30s — come from different parts of Italy, and start their gender transition from a female to a male identity at different times in their lives. Day by day, they boldly face all the obstacles of a strictly binary world. To achieve a fulfilling and dignified life is a matter of survival.
- 1/17/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
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