MONDAY 10/21 7:15 PM (SESSION 11)
Directors: Fiona Dawson, Gabriel Silverman Producers: James Connolly, Jamie Couglin, Sarah Kate Ellis, Amy Nauiokas, Vinay Singh, Zeke Stokes
Description:
TransMilitary chronicles the lives of four individuals (Senior Airman Logan Ireland, Corporal Laila Villanueva, Captain Jennifer Peace and First Lieutenant El Cook) defending their country’s freedom while fighting for their own. They put their careers and their families’ livelihoods on the line by coming out as transgender to top brass officials in the Pentagon in hopes of attaining the equal right to serve. The ban was lifted in 2016, but with President Trump now trying to reinstate it, their futures hang in the balance again. Around 15,500 transgender people serve in the US military (notably the largest transgender employer in the US), where they must conceal their gender identity because military policies ban their service.
Biography:
Fiona Dawson is an award winning director, producer & writer, LGBTQ advocate, and IFP Documentary Lab Fellow. She directed the Emmy-nominated Transgender, at War and in Love commissioned by The New York Times. She has previously filmed stories in India on sex trafficking, prostitution and HIV/AIDS and hosted segments for HereTV during the 2012 Republican and Democratic conventions, she is published in NBC OUT, Curve magazine, FTM Magazine, The Advocate, The Huffington Post and The New York Times. Fiona was honored by The White House as an LGBT Artist Champion of Change. She was voted Houston's Female Grand Marshal for the 2009 LGBT Pride Parade, has served on the National Board of Directors of the Human Rights Campaign and the Board of Directors for NLGJA - The Association of LGBTQ Journalists.
Gabriel Silverma is a journalist who has won more than a dozen awards for his reporting, including an Edward R. Murrow Award for his investigative work, a White House News Photographers Award for Best Documentary, and two Emmy nominations. He is a RIAS Fellow, an IFP Documentary Lab Fellow, and a funding recipient of the first-ever GLAAD Media Institute grant, Frameline Completion Fund, and many others. Silverman was named to the 10 Filmmakers to Watch list by The Independent. Silverman is the co-founder of SideXSide Studios.
