GEORGIE GIRL
Saturday, Oct. 19, Noon
Goethe Institut, $9
While America was grilling its president about a contact high he got at a Stones show a million years ago, the country best known for having more sheep than people (hold the giggles) was electing a transsexual to its national parliament. Georgina Beyer went from man to woman, from stripper to politico, from nothing extraordinary to nationally elected New Zealand legislator — the first transsexual in the world ever to do so. Her story is as impressive as she is, and the award-winning documentary that tells it is tightly directed, slickly edited and captivating throughout, ripe for heavy screening on the activist circuit.
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Georgie Girl traces Beyer’s life through flashbacks of her turbulent rise to prominence, interspersing them with C-SPAN style clips of snappy and eloquent soundbytes from the Parliament floor. The nonlinear narrative makes the film feel less biographical and more like a sociological study of the white, rural, conservative New Zealand culture that amazingly put merit over prejudice in electing a national leader.
Flashbacks to her days as a stripper have the grainy, pulp feel of 1970s porn, and clips from TV shows Georgina starred in should interest connoisseurs of archaic pop culture (fun fact: She was a Best Supporting Actress nominee at the New Zealand Emmys).
Georgina herself comes across as dignified and smart, making it almost easy to understand how she won over such a conservative culture. She is the reason the documentary works as well as it does. — Will Doig
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