KYMM'S 365 DAY MOVIE CHALLENGE: DISCLOSURE (2020, Sam Feder, Netflix/USA)

I had decided to make March about watching films from 2020 that I had missed, which was all of them, so a few days ago I randomly chose Disclosure (2020), a film that I had no memory of what it was about or why it was on my list.

Turns out it is a documentary about representation of trans people in media, which frankly sounded like it might be dry or lecturing, but was anything but. This is an absolutely terrific documentary, enjoyable from the beginning. But as it keeps going, it gets deeper and more moving and powerful, until the last half hour, when it becomes one of the best things I've seen in a long time.

It never crossed my mind before, but throughout the history of trans characters in television and movies, they are either jokes, victims, crazed killers, or disgusting. I mean, the montage of clips of men vomiting because they find out that the woman they are with is trans, is horrifying, seen all in a row like that.

All of the talking heads are trans men and women, so everything comes from an intensely personal perspective. There is Laverne Cox, of course, Lilly Wachowski, and Chaz Bono, but my favourites were Candis Cayne from Dirty, Sexy Money, Jen Richards from I Am Cait, and Sandra Caldwell, an older actress who had been spending most of her life hiding the fact that she was trans, but now she is out and talks about how amazing that is.

Somehow this film is not on the shortlist for this year's Oscars, but I think it belongs on any list of great documentaries about movies. It is currently available on Netflix.

Kymm Zuckert is an actor/writer/native Angelino. When Kymm was a child, her parents would take her to see anything, which means that sometimes she will see a film today and say, “I saw that when I was eight, I don’t remember any of that inappropriate sex stuff!” @Kymmz on Facebook, Twitter, and Letterboxd.