Trans-Active 20

Cowboy, a young transgender man, flees his hometown in search of a new beginning but the shadows of his past trail closely behind him.

Olaf is to take care of the family's cleaner's store, while his dad is away on a fair. In the evening he runs into three Brazilian ladies thrown out of a limousine not knowing where to go. Olaf invites them to stay with him and his deaf pot-smoking grandfather, which at first just causes some confusion as he soon is to marry his girlfriend Vera. The next day it's topsy-turvy all over.

It often happens that at the moment of death, transgender individuals are shorn of their identity. Their families are ashamed, the funeral takes place in secret, and on the tomb appears the name the deceased had before their transition, in one stroke nullifying the entire life path they had chosen. The same thing happened to Antonia. Her girlfriends gather to honor her memory and give her back her identity denied. In telling her story, the film’s stars, all drawn from the variegated transgender world, interweave the narrative with tales of their own lives, experiences, and memories.

Bosom buddies BeV StroganoV, Ovo Maltine, Ichgola Androgyn and Tima die Göttliche are four Berlin drag queens who met in the mid 1980s. These four queens became Germany’s most popular drag performers and have been busy fertilizing the German cultural scene. Besides being performers, they are also political activists – in AIDS awareness, anti-gay violence, the sex workers movement and the struggle against the extreme right and racism. The film tells their story.

The petite waitress Johnny works and lives in a truck-stop, where she's lonely and longs for love. She develops a crush on the garbage truck driver Krassky, although her sleazy boss Boris warns her that he's gay.

Samuel LeBlanc, a young transgender musician, embarks on a journey with his friends through the work of Acadian musician Angèle Arsenault (1943-2014). Coming from a small village, Samuel has long questioned his queer identity and his cultural identity. Does a queer Acadie exist? This musical documentary project will explore his double minority and the journey of young people, who like him, realize that despite the difficulties there is a star for each of us.

Peter Alexander, interviewed in Sydney, born and brought up as Mavis Higgins in New Zealand, speaks of his sex change from female to male. He discusses the aspects of his personality when younger which influenced his decision, his view of women in society and his plans for the future. Although Peter talks about shaving it is not clear if any medical intervention had assisted his sex change. The predominant voice in this clip is that of Alexander, dressed in jacket and tie, talking cheerily about his interest in sport, his awareness that his "male side and personality" were always dominant, his desire to marry and continue with his musical career. The story was sensationalised in the tabloid newspaper of the day "The Truth".

Are there trans people in the punk movement? How does punk resists in a brazilian state as conservative as Goiás? Is it open to different gender expressions?

Three stories of immigrants trying to start new lives in Poland: an Afghan traumatised by the war, a Ukrainian lost in her own body, and a Belarusian running away from painful love. The Afghan, Azzam, works as a translator for the Polish army. In his homeland he is treated like a traitor. Having been evacuated to Poland, he is unable to shake off the war experiences. The Ukrainian, Wiera, escapes to Poland to undergo sex reassignment surgery in secret from her family. An unexpected visit from her father and little son will make her face the question of her own identity once more. Żanna, the Belarusian, leaves her husband, a dissident, and lives together with her daughter at her sister’s in Warsaw. She wants to move out as soon as possible and make a normal home. Things get complicated when her husband gets arrested again.

Several characters realize their personal way to build their own identity from the choice of genre. Transsexual, transgender, crossdressing – the defining of terminologies different ways of looking at yourself are constantly rising, portraying a universe of possibilities, expanding the boundaries of the possible and permitted.

In Kentucky, a transgender woman and her best male friend lament the lack of eligible partners and step across old boundaries of love and romance.