Visiting Filmmakers Series, LGBTQ+ Resources Center, and Women and Gender Studies present: Disclosure with Sam Feder and Stacy Goldate

Director’s statement:

“When the now-controversial Time magazine cover story, “The Transgender Tipping Point,” hit the newsstands in June 2014, trans people had barely been acknowledged in the mainstream media, let alone celebrated. At first, I was thrilled. Don’t we all need to be seen?

“But then, I became concerned—because whenever a marginalized community gets mainstream attention, backlash ensues. Furthermore, what did this “tipping point” even mean? Trans people were still (and continue to be) disproportionately underemployed, lack access to affordable housing and health care, and face higher rates of hate crimes. The murder of trans women was becoming an epidemic, and the rate of suicide among trans men was surging. And this was all before the Trump administration began targeting the rights of trans people.

“I wanted to understand why the mainstream media was declaring a change for a community it had little connection to, why now, and what led to this new wave of trans visibility. I decided to create a history of trans representation from the perspective of this unique moment. With no written source dedicated to the subject, I began my research with nearly 100 oral histories with trans people who work in film and TV. I collected over 1000 film/TV clips from over 100 years of characters who traverse gender expectations. While most of these depictions do not reflect current definitions of trans people, they have informed how many of us have learned to think of ourselves.”

Sam Feder is a Peabody Award nominated film director. Cited by Indiewire as one of the “exciting trans filmmakers shaking up Hollywood”, Sam’s films explore the intersection of visibility and politics along the lines of race, class, and gender. Sam’s filmmaking practice models inclusion and equity in the industry.

Sam’s films have been programmed by Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival, CPH:DOX, MOMA PS-1, The British Film Institute, The Hammer Museum, and in hundreds of film festivals around the world. The Netflix Original Documentary, DISCLOSURE (Sundance, 2020) is an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. KATE BORNSTEIN IS A QUEER AND PLEASANT DANGER (2014), a portrait of trans icon Kate Bornstein, was named one of the best documentaries of 2014 by The Advocate, won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and multiple best feature film awards. Sam’s work has been supported by Ford/JustFilms, Fork Films, California Humanities, The Jerome Foundation, Perspective Fund, Threshold, IFP Film Week, Good Pitch USA/Doc Society, MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo artist residency.

Stacy Goldate began her career in journalism when she created Vanderbilt University’s first radio news program, nominated for an award by The Society of Professional Journalists. She went on to direct the award-winning documentary “Lucy Barks!” about Nashville’s former all-ages punk music venue, Lucy’s Record Shop. In Chicago, she worked for Women in the Director’s Chair and helped develop an after school media arts program for LGBTQ youth through The Video Machete Collective. She was named one of Chicago’s “30 Under 30” by the Windy City Times and received her MFA in Film/Video at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she directed the sci-fi film “Dominatrix Waitrix” and a series of short films and video installations that screened worldwide, including The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Outfest LA, and The London LGBTQ Film Festival. Stacy is now based in Los Angeles where she directs, produces, and edits documentaries. She and Craig A. Colton formed Deranged Squirrel Productions and co-directed the feature documentary “A Greater Society.” She has also edited many documentaries for film and tv including episodes from “The Nineties,” “1968: The Year That Changed America,” and “The 2000s” for CNN and Executive Producers Tom Hanks, Gary Goetzman and Mark Herzog. She co-edited World of Wonder’s Emmy-winning film “Out of Iraq” and the award-winning feature documentary, “hillbilly” directed by Ashley York and Sally Rubin.