Directed by Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt • 2020 • Canada
Starring Billy Tipton, Susan Stryker, Kate Bornstein
American jazz musician Billy Tipton developed a reputable touring and recording career in the mid-twentieth century, along with his band the Billy Tipton Trio. After his death in the late 1980s, it was revealed that Tipton had been assigned female at birth, and his life was swiftly reframed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career. The genre-defying documentary NO ORDINARY MAN seeks to correct that misrepresentation by collaborating with trans artists. As they collectively celebrate Tipton’s story as a musician living his life on his own terms, they paint a vivid portrait of a trans culture hero. NO ORDINARY MAN features leading voices and breakout stars in the trans community, including Marquise Vilsón, Scott Turner Schofield, Susan Stryker, C. Riley Snorton, and Thomas Page McBee.
Up Next in 21st Century Cinema
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By Hook or by Crook
Directed by Harry Dodge and Silas Howard • 2001 • United States
Starring Silas Howard, Harry Dodge, Joan JettThis fiercely innovative buddy film chronicles three weeks in the life of a handsome, gender-bending, small-town butch with a nagging messiah complex. Emotionally defeated since the deat...
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Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
Directed by Jeanie Finlay • 2015 • United Kingdom, United States
ORION: THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING tells the story of Jimmy Ellis—an unknown singer plucked from obscurity and thrust into the spotlight as part of a crazy scheme that had him masquerade as Elvis, back from the grave. With a fictiona...
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Mysterious Skin
Directed by Gregg Araki • 2004 • United States
Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Michelle TrachtenbergTwo young men are haunted by an event from their past in this powerful drama from Gregg Araki. Ten years earlier, in the summer of 1981, Brian (Brady Corbet) blacked out for five hou...
