Next week’s BlackStar Film Festival, a showcase of and platform for independent black films from around the world, is focusing on the reality for transgender people of color, the prison complex and the intersection of race and gender identity through a number of films.
One of the films featured this year, and garnering a lot of attention, is “Free CeCe,” the story of activist Chrishaun Reed “CeCe” McDonald, a transgender woman who was physically attacked by a group shouting racist and transphobic slurs. While fending off the attack with a pair of scissors, McDonald stabbed one of her attackers in the chest and he died from the wound. She was arrested for the stabbing and after a coercive interrogation was incarcerated in a men’s prison in Minnesota, charged with second-degree murder.
Rather than risk decades in prison, McDonald accepted a plea deal that reduced her charges to second-degree manslaughter, receiving a 41-month sentence. McDonald survived her incarceration and emerged from it as an activist and a leader.
Her story drew international attention and a Free CeCe campaign garnered significant support from media and public figures, including actress and activist Laverne Cox.
Documentarian and director Jacqueline Gares said Cox’s efforts to bring McDonald’s story to light inspired her to make the film.
“I saw Laverne speaking at the GLADD Media Awards in L.A. and she was talking about CeCe McDonald and the importance of her story and it just hit me,” Gares said. “I thought to myself, Why hasn’t anybody been doing anything on this story? Then I said, Why haven’t you pursued this? So I just went for it.”
Gares contacted Cox and asked her to get involved in the effort.
CeCe McDonald (LEFT) and Laverne Cox
“Her voice was incredibly essential for the shaping of the movie and the perspective, as well as CeCe’s of course,” Gares said, the latter of which they were able to get in person after the Department of Corrections in Minnesota OK’d their visit with McDonald. “We went up there and quickly realized after spending half the day with her that we had to come back and cover when she was being released from prison. The film started writing itself. As soon as CeCe was released, it was clear to me the commonality of CeCe’s story with a lot of other people, particularly women across the country and across the world. There was a lot of support and an international movement that I was aware of but it was still resonating with a lot of folks even as we were doing production. We just kept filming and the result is ‘Free CeCe.’”
BlackStar organizer and producing artistic director Maori Holmes said McDonald’s story was a natural fit for the festival, which runs Aug. 4-7.
“This film is important to make sure the CeCe’s voice continues to be heard and the fact that she survived her attack is really important as well so that we’re not always talking about tragic trans lives,” Holmes said. “It’s a really well-done film. Also for us, because we focus on black folks, sometimes we have to show documentaries that are directed by non-black folks and this is one in which it really feels like a collaboration. We want to make sure that when we talk about Black Lives Matter that we’re talking about all kinds of black lives and people like CeCe are included in that narrative.”
While the festival has always screened films covering LGBT themes and subjects, the types of film vary.
“By and large, the work changes as the people change. We definitely don’t have a genre focus,” Holmes said. “We’re always trying to show a balance between documentaries and narrative work. This year we have more narratives that we have had in the past. Often with independent festivals, because documentaries cost a little less, it’s easier to have more quality documentary work but we actually have more narrative works this year. But that’s not on purpose.”
Gares said she, along with the film’s backers and supporters, are excited about its inclusion in the festival.
“The Leeway Foundation, who is presenting this, really wanted us to come and show the film to communities,” Gares said. “So the whole community surrounding the festival felt like family to us. We knew we were going to be at the BlackStar Film Festival, it was just a matter of having it all come together. But as soon as they asked, I jumped at the chance to be on the festival because it’s a younger, vibrant queer black audience. That was the audience that I very much wanted to show this film to.”
Gares said she hopes McDonald’s story impacts the audience in the same way it impacted her.
In particular, she said, it highlights that the treatment of trans women of color often receive from law enforcement and the prison industrial complex is far from fair.
“It really got me to understand the levels of systematic oppression and how someone like CeCe really lives in the margins and is very penalized by the system on a daily basis,” Gares said. “Unfortunately, CeCe’s case isn’t unique in that aspect. There are many CeCes in prisons and jails across the country. It’s a smaller demographic of the population but of that demographic it’s unfortunate that incarceration happens to black trans women, as well as violence. It’s really another form of violence that this particular group of people are susceptible to, so that wasn’t unique. What was unique about CeCe is that she had a support committee. It really important for us to show the support she had in her community in Minnesota and across the world, and how this group of people were able to get the media message out about who she was, how she was attacked and that she was defending herself. That story needs to be told because the system wasn’t allowing CeCe’s story to come through. The support really made the difference in public opinion.”
The BlackStar Film Festival runs Aug. 4-7 at multiple locations near the University of Pennsylvania, 3420 Walnut St. For more information about the festival, visit blackstarfest.org or facebook.com/BlackStarFest. For more information on “Free CeCe,” visit www.freececedocumentary.net.