Beautiful Alchemy
Documentary/Experimental Hybrid Short Film - 2019
OFFICIAL SELECTION - IMAGE+NATION - “MADE AU CANADA” 2019
Beautiful Alchemy is a portrait of Renée Yoxon, a queer, non-binary, and disabled singer songwriter. The film explores their struggles and triumphs with identity, disability, and their artistic ambitions. This is done through music, performance, day in the life moments, interviews, and lyrical montage. This was all designed with input from Renée on their proper representation of their story.
The film seeks to bring light to disability issues as they impact the queer and trans community first. At the same time, it also seeks to be an approachable and humanizing portrait of a trans person for those outside the LGBTQIA community, to counter the reductionist portrayals of trans people in media today.
A positive film made by queer and trans people for queer and trans people.
Renee Yoxon
Director’s Statement
So few of the trans-focused stories portrayed in the media centre positive trans and queer representation, discuss intersectional issues and counter the cisgender gaze. These realities made it vital for the decisions that construct Beautiful Alchemy to be deliberate as well as sensitive to its main character.
The film is aesthetically concerned with exploring documentary norms and breaking them. Fighting the tendency in documentary to overstate objectivity, Beautiful Alchemy uses a handheld aesthetic and visible editing techniques to demonstrate subjectivity and transparency. It draws the audience's attention to the deliberate decisions that are made in shaping a story during the filmmaking process. All the while, it maintains a clear storyline in which its subject, Renée Yoxon, remains in control of their own narrative.
Beautiful Alchemy is a film by trans and queer people for trans and queer people primarily, while remaining accessible to outside audiences. It provides visibility, honesty and hope while exploring the talent of a strong emerging disabled non-binary artist.
Poster designed by Teagan Lance.
Film Screenings / Release
December 1st 2019 - IMAGE+NATION (Montréal, Québec) - “MADE AU CANADA” Official Selection