This year’s Venice Film Festival in Italy, which kicks off Wednesday, features two movies in the official competition that have transgender protagonists — including a 12-year-old girl who believes she is a boy.
Both films aree Italian productions, though one of them is in English with a predominantly American cast.
L’immensità stars Penelope Cruz as the mother of a 12-year-old girl, Adriana, who believes she is a boy and wants to changer her name and her sex. Directed by Emanuele Crialese, the Italian-language movie takes place during the 70s and follows other members of the immediate family on their tumultuous emotional journeys.
Crialese cast a non-transgender actress in the role of Adriana.
“The perception she has of herself is that she is a girl who is born biologically as a child who feels that she is a boy,” Crialese told Variety.
“It’s like there is this misperception around her [in the way she is perceived by others] and the mystery of it is: What is this misperception that she feels? Is it a mental problem? Is it something that will pass? A fleeting thing? The fact is that, more than the other two children, she embodies distress.”
A Variety article claimed that the director is also transgender but it remains unclear if that it is true.
The English-language Monica stars American transgender actor Trace Lysette as a trans “woman” who returns home to care for her ailing mother (Patricia Clarkson). Lysette previously appeared in the Amazon Studios series Transparent, also playing a transgender person.
This year’s Venice Film Festival is set to kick off Wednesdaywith a host of Oscar hopefuls making their world premieres, including Netflix’s White Noise, starring Adam Driver, and Blonde, with Ana De Armas as Marilyn Monroe. Director Darren Aronofsky will present his first film in five years — The Whale, starring Brendan Fraser.
As Breitbart News reported, the festival is siding with China for the second year in a row by erasing the existence of Taiwan, with the festival’s official programming referring to the independent country as “Taipei,” the capital city.
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