About the film

In this film, Alexander uses their artwork to take us on a journey through gender identity, expression, drag, and being queer in a Midwestern town. Through on screen interviews in front of different backdrops of color, Alex tells their personal story in a way that feels universal to all identities among the gender spectrum. This film is colorful, playful, and an art piece in itself.

About the Filmmakers

Director/Producer Allison Walsh is an independent documentary filmmaker, freelance videographer, and fine artist, who is committed to local political advocacy and documenting social issues in the Midwest. Walsh’s films have screened around the world including Paris, France, Sayulita, Mexico, Barcelona, Spain, and Chicago, Illinois. Walsh is the founder and program director of the Big Picture Film Festival, an international film festival in Peoria, IL (2018-2019). She is a recipient of the Kartemquin Emerging Storytellers Fund (2019), Illinois Arts Council Individual Artist Program(2019), and the Acorn Equality Grant (2018), awarded to work that positively impacts the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons and allies. She has been invited to speak about her films at Western Illinois University and the El Paso Museum of History. Walsh’s first feature-length documentary, Teaching About Religion, is in-Association with Kartemquin Films and is currently in post-production.

Producer Alexander Martin: I was born and raised in Appalachia, a predominantly white and poor area, raised by a white mother and the strong women of her family in the absence of my black father. I am queer, I am non-binary, I am Trans, I am black, I am white, I am Appalachian. Growing up visibly black in an area without representation, and without the embrace of the totality of myself within any one of my disparate communities, has made me more aware of myself and my social contexts; in the absence of wider social affirmation, I have had to focus on who I am, finding my own identity and affirming its value to myself. Now, I am an artist, an advocate for my communities, a witch ,a drag queen, a mentor and educator. It is between these spaces and roles that I exist, and through sculpture, painting, performance, installation, drag, ritual, magic, and outreach, I make work that grounds me and represents the nexuses in which I exist and the communities that nurture and support them. Currently living and working in Peoria, IL.

Presented by WSIU

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