#FIRSTLOOK: “FRAMING AGNES” TO PREMIER AT HOT DOCS 2022

After winning raves at Sundance 2022 including the NEXT Audience Award and the NEXT Innovator Award, Documentary FRAMING AGNES will premiere at HOT DOCS 2022.

Synopsis:

The film follows a young trans woman named Agnes in the late 1950s, who participated in Harold Garfinkel’s gender health research at UCLA, to gain access to the gender affirming care she so willfully sought out. Her story was considered to be singular until 2017 when eight never-before-seen case files of other patients from the same era were uncovered. In this rigorous cinematic exercise, director Chase Joynt explores how medicine and media have set various frames of understanding for trans existence and experience. Through a collaborative practice of reimagination, a stellar cast of trans talent including Zackary Drucker (Transparent), Angelica Ross (Pose), Jen Richards (Her Story), Silas Howard (A Kid Like Jake), Max Wolf Valerio (The Testosterone Files) and Stephan Ira take on vividly rendered, impeccably vintage reenactments, bringing to life groundbreaking artifacts of mid-century trans health care.

Framing Agnes was selected by Telefilm Canada’s Talent to Watch program and made in partnership with Canada Council for the Arts, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund, XTR, University of Victoria, Into the Noise and Inside Out Re: Focus Fund. The documentary was first developed as a short film and premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

More info about this year’s HOT DOCS Festival can be found here.

(Photo/video credit: Hot Docs)