A Film by Roi Ben Ami
(Israel, 2004, 55 Minutes, Color, Hebrew, English subtitles)
Inbar, a 32-year-old transsexual, looks like a woman, but has been living her life “midway” in the journey from masculinity to femininity for many years. It appears that she is struggling against everyone: her past, herself, society, the (almost) inevitable choice of becoming a prostitute and her family (with whom she is in close relationship).
The film shows an upfront and personal view of a transsexual person undergoing a journey in the search for identity and the affect of it on herself and her family. The director explores his cousin - Inbar’s - journey of self-definition. The close relationship between the director and the “subject”, allows for a unique perspective.
Inbar is an independent person; crude, outspoken, cynical, and self-aware who does not try to idealize her life, nor her personality. She acknowledges what she is and what she does. She presents her life in a crude and straightforward manner: She is a transsexual – not a woman - and she is a prostitute.
Her family, which appears in the film – alone and in get-togethers with Inbar - does not readily accept the new identity or inclinations of the ex-son / brother. They accept her with open arms – but with a stubborn reluctance to be rid of her past. From their point of view she was born and will remain the same person.
Through Inbar’s story, told by her like a personal diary now open to the public, the film examines, in an indirect manner, subjects such as inner family relationships, search for sexual identity and self-definition. Beyond the definition of trans-sexuality, the film brings the story of a person who is in the midst of a process of which we usually get to see only the end results.
NewFest LGBT film Festival , New York