“It’s a revolutionary act just to walk down the street.”

“And to love your sisters as well.”

THIS IS ME: And My Sisters is one of the five beautifully cinematic short films in THIS IS ME, a docu-series inspired by the award-winning series Transparent, and directed by Project Involve Fellow Rhys Ernst. The films are docu-narrative hybrids—doc content, real-people subjects and cinematic aesthetics—that each take on a different theme relevant to the trans community, and all spin off specific moments and topics touched on in the show.

And My Sisters revolves around friendships: “For years, transgender women lived in fear of hang out together, lest they become targets of violence. Here, artist/actor/decorator Van Barnes, comedic iconoclast Miss Barbie-Q and artist/filmmaker Zackary Drucker proudly and bravely bond in public, offering a glimpse of rarely seen transfeminine sisterhood.” Ernst says the friendship theme of the short was inspired by a scene in Transparent when Davina, Shea and Maura are having a cocktail together—“the only time in Hollywood history you see three trans women sitting together having a conversation on a TV show.”

“We used that as a jumping off point for documentary series episode,” Ernst said. “It shows how solidarity and friendships are a way to push back against violence and isolation.”

Once the themes were identified for the shorts, they were cast with real-world people—many of whom had worked on or had some connection to Transparent.

“We always wanted to use the spotlight on Transparent to look at other issues that affect the trans community,” said Ernst, who was brought in by show creator Jill Soloway to work on the acclaimed Amazon Prime series at the start, to work on the pilot—the two had met a few years before when both had shorts screening at Sundance—and for its season, Ernst is one of the show’s co-producers.

“It was out of the blue and came together really quickly,” says Ernst of the THIS IS ME series; the five shorts were conceptualized, cast and shot over four weeks. Ernst’s narrative style and art film background—he’s shown collaborative work at the Whitney Biennial—help give the docu-series the look and feel of an extension of the show. Rhys collaborated with co-producer Zackary Drucker and story producer Esti Giordani on the series—both work on Transparent as well. THIS IS ME also uses the same graphic designers as Transparent for the title sequence, and the same composer, so the look and sound echoes that of the show. Ernst said, “We wanted to make the shorts feel part of the Transparent world.”

The original idea had been to bring in five different trans directors—following the core principle of “transfirmative action” hiring on Transparent—though eventually that idea was abandoned in favor of having a more consistent tone for the series. Soloway and her team went to great lengths to hire trans and gender nonconformist staff behind the camera, even though most had little or no traditional film or television experience. (How could they, given the longstanding lack of access?) Rhys has even met with union leaders to try to come up with ways to remove barriers and create short cuts for people they wanted to hire on the series who had extensive relevant professional experience but haven’t come up through the traditional pay-your-dues, slow crawl from the bottom-up Hollywood system.

“One thing Jill has always talked about is that the future of trans representation comes down to empowering trans people to be writers, directors and producers, and to get other under-represented groups into Hollywood to tell more diverse stories,” said Ernst. “The docu-series was more a demonstration of that, to basically put a number of trans and gender non-conforming people in the driver’s seat. And to look at as an example of how we can prioritize and privilege outside voices. It’s something that other productions can start to model.”

Now, a little over a year time after the ground-breaking web series first launched and ignited a national dialogue about the issues surrounding the trans community and its representation, the coming out of Caitlyn Jenner has thrown an even wider, brighter spotlight on the topic. Rhys said, ‘I think it’s such a thrilling moment in our history in terms of the trans civil right movement, and how rapidly it’s changing.” Rhys pointed out that Jenner occupies a very particular place in the culture as she’s known to millennials and baby boomers for completely different reasons. “It’s a real gain for trans community have someone with so much prominence come out so gracefully,” he said. “I’m glad for the prominence—she’s one story and we need to have thousands more stories.  I would like to personally congratulate her for coming out.”

THIS IS ME, the docu-series premiered on EW.com and can also be viewed on Soloway’s website. It will also be hosted on Amazon Prime.

Season 2 of Transparent is due to be released later this year.

Pamela Miller / Website & Grants Manager