Alexis Arquette: She’s my Brother

USA 2005 70min
Dir: Matthew Barbato & Nikki Parrott

This candid look at sexuality and gender under the glare of celebrity follows Alexis Arquette, a guest of this Festival in 2002, and the youngest of the famous Arquette family.

Eloquent, creative, talented and clever, Alexis has always felt at odds with her gender, but completely comfortable with acting - the more extreme the character, the better. Her life has become a haze of acting appearances in over 60 films, shocking the unshockable at celebrity parties and movie premières, and performing at drag clubs. But ultimately Alexis wants to become a woman, physically as well as emotionally, and so she approached the film crew to document her last year as a legal, biological male.

Over the year, as she goes through the sexual reassignment process, Alexis is by turns beguiling, petulant and out-and-out entertaining. With refreshing humour and honesty she also thinks long and hard about her life-altering decision, and begins to confront her lifestyle, her facile friendships, her devil-may-care attitude and her ideas around being in the spotlight.

JHB    Sat 3 / 6pm         Sun 11 / 4pm
CT    Sat 10 / 3.30pm     Tue 13 / 7pm