Humanity is the key to connection
Lead with Love
“We're living in an increasingly divided country and world, and these divisions are fuelled and reinforced by social media algorithms that orient us to aggression with ourselves and one another. Our film offers a way out of this "back and forth," "good people and bad people," and teaches how compassion can be a way of breaking out of trauma cycles and the circuitry of violence. The most controversial part of our film is not that it's about trans people, but rather that it promotes love in a climate that seems increasingly hostile to it. The film shows how the process of learning self-love can translate into loving the Other, because you realize that there's a bit of you in everyone. Or as Valarie Kaur says on strangers: "You're a part of me I haven't met yet." - Alok
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Our film encourages audiences to change the conversation - leading with fascination, not fear. We share a series of thoughts below that hope to inspire a wider dialogue about what identity means to you, and how you can embrace everyone in society equally.
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“The queerness that lives in everybody is the spark that makes each person unique..”
— Cheshire Vineyard
Q&A with Director Alex Hedison & Jamie Lee Curtis
"There are over four hundred pieces of anti-trans legislation that have been introduced in 2023 alone, and its only March, mind you"
— Alok
Frameline Q&A
Watch this conversation from the Framline Film Festival following a screening of ALOK and THERE ARE THINGS TO DO. It’s an enlightening discussion featuring Alok, Director Alex Hedison, and Producer Meggan Lennon. Director Mike Smyers and Producer Marc Smolowitz were also present to discuss their short about Alok's aunt Urvashi Vaid.
“There's a conversation in this country that you and I have a different definition of what it means to be a woman.
I don't think that's it.
I think we have a different definition of love.”
— Alok
"The human rights campaign has declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in America…"
— Alok
Out on Film Q&A
“The majority of people still report not having met a trans person before. So their impressions of trans people are mediated by non-trans peoples anxieties about us, rather than the realities of our lives.
Our film doesn't just seek to humanize trans people in this politically fraught climate, it seeks to humanize people who default to hatred and prejudice.
It seeks to show how this investment in policing trans rights is a distraction from our common humanity.
It shows that transness is not something "over there," it's something within each one of us..”
— Alok
"I think replacing fear with fascination is what has made this life worth living for me"
— Dylan Mulvaney
Follow our journey
