FtF: Female to Femme:
A Film by Elizabeth Stark & Kami Chisholm
Based on a show directed and conceived of by Elizabeth Stark for San Francisco in Exile, FtF is a controversial film that celebrates the slippery journey that is gender.
Synopsis
FtF: Female to Femme celebrates dyke femme identities and imagines a world in which femme— not female masculinities— is the exemplary signifier of queerness. A film that envisions more than it “documents,” FtF denaturalizes gender and pushes for an understanding of femininity as multiple rather than singular, constructed rather than natural, and as being as potentially radical on someone “born female” as masculinity, which has lately been given a great deal of privilege in the group formerly known as the dyke community. Colorful, sexy, funny and moving, FtF features a host of fabulous femmes, including actress/ writer Guinivere Turner, writer/activist Jewelle Gomez, rock stars Leslie Mah and Bitch, professors, activists, artists and dancers. FtF: Female to Femme makes use of parody and costuming much the way femme does: to create a saucy, indelible impression of a people and a politics central to the gender revolution.
Read interviews with Elizabeth about her film FtF: Female to Femme
“Is Femme a Gender Identity?” A smart conversation with Jake Anderson-Minshall
A fun conversation with chance for you to add your thoughts at Katia Noyes’ blog
“[T]he most provocative piece of work this year may prove to be a homegrown one: FtF: Female to Femme;” a write up in Bay Area Business Woman News
Directors’ Statement
FtF: Female to Femme is a documentary that explores femme dyke identity as a radical
gender practice and embodiment. Since the “invention” of homosexuality and the invert
in the late 1800s in the field of sexology, the exemplary homosexual/gay/queer figure
has been one who embodies some sort of gender crossing, most especially the
masculine woman and the feminine man. This primary conception of homosexuality
persists to this day, rendering largely invisible those whose gender identities are not
visibly different from their perceived natural sex…
