DOCUMENTARY FEATURES (Non-Competition)

BEING BEBE
Dir: Emily Branham / 93 min / 2021 / USA, Cameroon / English, French / Documentary Feature / First Feature

Marshall Ngwa (a.k.a. renowned drag performer BeBe Zahara Benet) came to the United States from homophobic Cameroon with dreams of a better life, and became the first winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2009. Being Bebe follows Marshall’s remarkable immigrant journey from the earliest days of his amateur drag performance, to his emergence as one of the leading artists in the movement to celebrate and advance Queer Black Excellence. With 15 years of intimate access to Marshall’s story, the film presents his unique love affair with performance alongside his unstoppable sense of persistence and purpose, offering an unprecedented portrait of an artist who chooses to live a creative life against all odds.

FRAMING AGNES
Dir: Chase Joynt / 75 min / 2022 / Documentary Feature / Canada / English / Documentary Feature / First Feature (independent)

In 1958, a young trans woman named Agnes entered a study about sex disorders at UCLA to get the gender-affirming care she needed, by any means necessary. Her story was long considered to be exceptional until never-before-seen case files of other patients were found in 2017.
Boasting an all-star cast of transgender artists and performers – Angelica Ross, Jen Richards, Zackary Drucker, Silas Howard, Max Wolf Valerio, and Stephen Ira, Framing Agnes uses re-enactment and genre-blurring storytelling techniques to breathe new life into previously unknown people who redefined gender in the midcentury.