Just in time for Pride Month, Netflix will premiere the documentary Disclosure that looks at how the fabled stories of Hollywood deeply influence how Americans feel about transgender people, and how transgender people are taught to feel about themselves. Directed by Sam Feder and executive produced by Laverne Cox, the film world-premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and was also a selection of the Tribeca, CPH:DOX and Hot Docs festivals; and will launch globally on Netflix on Friday, June 19.
Disclosure is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. Leading trans thinkers and creatives, including Laverne Cox, Lilly Wachowski, Yance Ford, Mj Rodriguez, Jamie Clayton, and Chaz Bono, share their reactions and resistance to some of Hollywood’s most beloved moments. Grappling with films like A Florida Enchantment (1914), Dog Day Afternoon, The Crying Game, and Boys Don’t Cry, and with shows like The Jeffersons, The L-Word and Pose, they trace a history that is at once dehumanizing, yet also evolving, complex, and sometimes humorous. What emerges is a fascinating story of dynamic interplay between trans representation on screen, society’s beliefs, and the reality of trans lives.
Reframing familiar scenes and iconic characters in a new light, director Sam Feder invites viewers to confront unexamined assumptions, and shows how what once captured the American imagination now elicit new feelings. Disclosure provokes a startling revolution in how we see and understand trans people.
Featuring: Laverne Cox, Angelica Ross, Brian Michael Smith, Yance Ford, Zeke Smith, Lilly Wachowski, Mj Rodriguez, Michael D Cohen, Chaz Bono, Jamie Clayton, Alexandra Billings, Jen Richards, Tiq Milan, Nick Adams, Tre’Vell Anderson, Trace Lysette, Rain Valdez, Zackary Drucker, Marquis Vilson, Chase Strangio, Sandra Caldwell, Candis Cayne, Susan Stryker, Alexandra Grey, Jazzmun, Ser Anzoategui, Elliot Fletcher, Bianca Leigh, Leo Sheng, Mickey R. Mahoney, Hailie Sahar.
Cited by Indiewire as an “exciting trans filmmaker shaking up Hollywood,” director Sam Feder’s work explores the power dynamics and politics of media-driven identity connecting urgent issues in the trans community to the struggles of the past. The Advocate named Sam’s feature, Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger, one of the best LGBTQ documentaries of 2014. Feder’s work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Fork Films, the Jerome Foundation, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo.