Dave Roil's mentioned a couple of times that Georgina was in a Bond movie or something like that, but she got fired for being trans. Said that she was embarrassed, so that might be why it's not in her biography. Something that the people from NZ on Screen could do is find her tapes from when she was a soap actor/actress on Close To Home and put those online. -
As for inadvertently alerting the American trans scene about Carmen... well, one of the things that I try to do is to talk about NZ things in my films, and it struck me as strange that the Transgender Archive had heard of Amy Bock, but not Carmen or Georgina. Carmen wore her natural hair in public, and her headdresses etc. on stage or when she was being the madam. Regarding the documentary, one of the things from the memoirs that I want to include is Carmen's business empire. It wasn't just the nightclub and the coffee house. There was a brothel and a curio shop and something else that wasn't entirely legal as well.
This isn't intended to be a revisionist take. Peoples memories are probably fuzzy, so it's looking at the myth, but also attempting to find the reality about the trans scene and their relationship to all these various parts of the illegal world that trans people find themselves in due to social stigma and political inaction. -
Research-wise, I'm keen to listen to the My Body, My Business audio tapes as well, but that requires getting permission from Dana's relatives. That's critical material for the documentary, though. The more stuff in their own words, the better.
So, that's the glamour half, and then the other half is the mundane reality of being trans or gender diverse in Wellington. Something for the overseas fans to consider is that Wellington is filled with film fans, and it's not like people would behave for the camera.
I'm obviously too out, but another team could film some surreptitious stuff on a Friday or Saturday night, though honestly people aren't bashing trannies as much as they used to.
With my cheap Canon, they won't think we're the news, so we'll get natural reactions.
This is a really big project, despite not being a 22-hour Movie Orgy. Lots of research, and lots of media enquiries, and then lots of sitting and analysing transcripts ... that's how Paul and David cut Meat, but I've never done that for any of my documentaries.
It wasn't necessary for the Dakumentary: I was moving clips in and out, rather than cutting tiny bits around, and it wasn't important for any of the footage that we shot.
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For Michelle K: well, if you're reading, I'll point out that you told me back in 2020 that I'd need to line up some takatāpui perspectives, and I reckon I can deliver that part of the film. I don't know many Pākehā trans people, to be totally honest, so maybe that's where Amelia or Jenna or Six could collaborate to provide those perspectives.
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