Introduction
I returned to the BFI’s Flare Festival 2025, which is now forty years old (it began life, of course, as a lesbian and gay film festival). The programmer presenting the two films was trans-identified. As always, the activist element wanted to queer the archives with our experiences and we were encouraged to submit these, there was even an event, led by EJ Scott of the Museum of Transology.
Review of Trans Memoria
Firstly, I will say some nice things. Verseau mainly shot the footage inside a Thai hotel where men recover post-vaginoplasty surgery and in the surrounding drab urban area. The utilitarian nature of the rooms and corridors transform into something quite foreboding, reminiscent of The Shining. He also shot these scenes as if it were an abandoned city. The artifice worked: these men are living in a hermetically sealed world of their own egos after all. There was also a running metaphor of rotten fruit for the post-op wound Verseau and his ilk suffer, the shots done in tight close-up, which had a bamboozling disturbing effect. Ultimately, however, the film was not really a criticism of ‘gender affirming care’ at all, in which case, what is it?
Well, nominally Verseau was paying tribute to Meril, the friend he made at the hotel (they had their surgeries on the same day). We didn’t hear that much about Meril, only that he had committed suicide a few years after vaginoplasty. Verseau has a phone conversation with Meril’s mother’s best friend, who testifies that Meril had never been the same again after the surgery. In order to interrogate his feelings further about Meril’s death, Verseau invited two pre-op trans-identified males to take part in the film. Both are interested in having it done, Verseau dispensing advice (aka being a ‘trans mum’) about whether or not to proceed. One isn’t sure. He wants to be fucked by men and if the hole doesn’t work for that, then what is the point? Verseau nurses his hatchling with some very confusing advice: vaginoplasty surgery doesn’t really allow for penetration but also if he dilates for three days in the row then he sort of can but it is still really painful. But it is possible.
We also have footage of Verseau of the night before the op, in which he is clearly having a nervous breakdown, having probably changed his mind but unable to reverse gear. Then of him post-surgery; he is euphoric from the painkillers and literally conks out whilst filming himself. He refers to himself as transsexual, as it was known in 2012.
One feels if Verseau was genuinely interested in Meril’s story, he would have picked two men who had been through vaginoplasty surgery, ideally at the same place, and used their reflections on whether it had really been worth it. Hearing the reflections of two men who didn’t know what they don’t know was, well, unenlightening to say the least and there was more than a hint of grooming going on. Interestingly one of the men refused to take part in the final part of the documentary, the break-up unexplained.
During the Q&A it appears that Verseau has very much survived the trauma and had a fuck-ton of female feminisation surgery since, now fully passing, so -yay!- success(?). As per usual no one asked any obvious questions, e.g. Do you regret it? Did your two stooges go through with it? Why didn’t the third lad return to end the film? And: Why didn’t you put this highly relevant information in the film? These are all questions people would have asked had it been any other issue film.
Review of Everywhere I Look
Before watching the main feature, we were shown this short film. The director, November Nolan, was present and informed us that his mother had passed away during post production, the estrangement apparently never resolved. He hoped we would get to know her a little bit.
There turned out to be one big problem with that; he wasn’t talking to her, so she didn’t appear in the film, apart from a clip of her (she looked so kind), celebrating November’s first birthday – shown what felt like a dozen times – and a begging voicemail message which explained everything: ‘Please let me know how you’re doing and maybe occasionally respond to my texts, it worries me, I don’t like not hearing about you. I hope everything’s good. We really miss you. Talk to you later, bye.’
That voicemail message was played right at the start of the film and with no embarrassment whatsoever thereafter we had scene after scene of November’s bottom lip stuck out, being ‘wistful’ about the relationship he had lost, so many I thought I could hear an irony meter exploding somewhere. We also had him ask people off-camera about the shooting schedule (he directed) and him taking-off and putting-on oestrogen patches. One wonders how much cross sex hormones contribute to such selfish behaviour.
The real theme of the movie appeared to be the benefit of ‘queer family’, as November had a rag-tag bunch of friends, who had transplanted mom. That said it was quite nicely shot and soundtracked so not completely unbearable to watch. Poor mom though.
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The Lies They Tell 
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