Strengthening identities

I was naturally very pleased about this. It doesn't just mean recognition for having lasted so long in this gruelling profession, but also that the older films have become minor classics.

It varies from film to film. I received a lot of feedback on the early feminist punk films from the 1980s from young women from different cultures, even from India and Turkey, who felt strengthened in their identity by the rebellious images of women. The Documentary Warrior of Light, for example, inspired many viewers to donate to the children's project shown, Projeto Uerê, in Rio and to sponsor favela children. The pedagogy of the protagonist Yvonne B. de Mello presented in the follow-up film Zona Norte is used in a number of refugee camps in Turkey to de-traumatise children. The Turkish educators learned about this method through the screenings of the film in Ankara.

In the pre-digital era, some of my colleagues got into bad debt because the production costs on celluloid were so much higher. That happens less today. But there are so many more films that the biggest problem today - and not just for indies in the USA - is the question of how to distribute our films properly. How can we reach viewers in cinemas, on TV channels and on the internet and make a living from it at the same time?

The idea came from the viewers. In discussions after the film, people kept asking how the protagonists from back then were doing today. I then realised that there is little material by and about older transsexuals. I was also interested in how transsexuals, especially female-to-male transsexuals, deal with their changed gender identity as they age. Thanks to social media, contact with them is very good. I am networked with all of them there and we use messaging services to exchange information.