After the tragic, inexplicable death of his infant niece Kalla, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax’s (Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance, Frameline34) family was overwrought with grief that quickly turned into a nightmare when his sister was charged with child abuse and her husband ended up behind bars. On the eve of his brother-in-law’s release from prison, Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown to confront his complicated past with his camera in tow. But his niece’s death is just the beginning.
Minax navigates his sister’s history with drug addiction, his parent’s fervent Mormon roots, and their struggle with Minax’s identity as a trans man, in addition to numerous unearthed revelations. What follows is a raw exploration of the enduring bonds of family that blends cinema vérité formalism with decades of home movie footage, all narrated by an ethereal ghost-child. Charting inventive new territory in nonfiction filmmaking, this poetic rumination on grief and queer identity is a bold and challenging vision, refusing to offer easy answers and instead having the strength to ask the difficult questions.
