Don­na

“When you’re free to be, you can be mag­nif­i­cent.” This is the mantra guid­ing the trans­gen­der, lumi­nous and whol­ly trans­fix­ing Don­na Per­son­na. Most known for being part of the leg­endary drag troupe The Cock­ettes, the cel­e­brat­ed per­former and activist is the tit­u­lar and cap­ti­vat­ing sub­ject of Jay Bedwani’s documentary.

No two trans sto­ries are the same, and it’s val­i­da­tion, empa­thy and com­mu­ni­ty, rather than Donna’s achieve­ments, that make up the cor­ner­stones of the film. ​“1950s sub­ur­bia was no place for a sis­sy like me”, Don­na explains while look­ing at old pho­to albums. Her life as a trans activist and per­former in San Fran is a far cry from her con­ser­v­a­tive Bap­tist upbring­ing in San Jose, where she lived until the age of 19. Yearn­ing for her estranged sib­lings – who still know her as ​‘Gus­ta­vo’ – to meet and love her as Don­na, she musters up the courage to recon­nect with her sis­ter Gloria.

We also see Don­na in the cre­ative process, writ­ing a play about the Comp­ton Cafe­te­ria riot along­side Mark Nas­sar and Col­lette LeGrande. Three years before the infa­mous Stonewall riots broke out in New York, a group of trans women stood up against police in Gene Compton’s Cafe­te­ria, a pop­u­lar queer spot in the ​“Trans Cul­tur­al Dis­trict” of Ten­der­loin. A woman fed up with the harass­ment and abuse that her com­mu­ni­ty was fac­ing, is said to have thrown a cup of cof­fee in a police officer’s face, spark­ing a riot that marked an unprece­dent­ed moment of trans resis­tance against police violence.

To hon­our the lives of these women and cement the lega­cy of their ground­break­ing riot, Don­na whol­ly devotes her­self to the sto­ry of this over­looked event in queer his­to­ry. We bear wit­ness to rehearsals and con­ver­sa­tions as she shares anec­dotes with the the­atre group, before the film con­cludes with the site-spe­cif­ic per­for­mance of the play, set in the his­toric venue.

Bedwani’s cam­era qui­et­ly observes Don­na day-to-day, unas­sum­ing­ly delin­eat­ing a can­did and inti­mate por­trait of her inner world, her cre­ative pur­suits, and the way she nur­tures her trans chil­dren, yet by favour­ing a prac­ti­cal­ly equal focus on fam­i­ly rap­proche­ment and the play she is writ­ing, the pace and inten­si­ty of the nar­ra­tive are slight­ly compromised.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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