What makes this documentary about a community of transgender women in Argentina so powerful is the feeling of intimacy and closeness. Director Isabelle Solas films her subjects with sensitivity and insight – and in return they open up their lives for the camera. That said, the film doesn’t exactly make it easy for audiences outside Argentina, giving virtually no explanation or context. It opens with scenes from the 2018 trial of a man convicted of stabbing to death a trans woman, Diana Sacayán. But it takes a bit of Googling to learn her story: Sacayán was a high-profile transgender activist murdered in 2015. The conviction of her killer was historic – the first in Argentina under laws against gender-motivated hate crimes.
The film focuses on two trans women. One is veteran activist Claudia, a funny, witty force of nature who is doing her damnedest to lobby feminist groups for more trans inclusion. We see her passionately and persuasively making the case for common ground at a rally. “History has made us invisible too, it has persecuted us, it has murdered us, humiliated us.” Claudia is close to her family: her elderly mother beams with pride sitting next to her daughter.
That’s not the experience of other trans women in the film, who talk of being disowned by their families, pushing some into sex work. Many share their stories with Violeta, a cool and soulful anthropology researcher and trans activist, who is the film’s other focus. Being trans is dangerous in Argentina; one activist points out that life expectancy is just 35 years in Latin America as a whole. In her early 50s, she is beating the odds. Still, the film ends on an optimistic note: Violeta at an exhibition celebrating trans culture and history – wall after wall of black and white images from the archive of gorgeous trans women done up to the nines.
• Our Bodies Are Your Battlefields is available from 22 June on Mubi.
