TRANSGENDER FILM CENTER UNVEILS INAUGURAL CAREER LAB COHORT
The Transgender Film Center, a nonprofit advancing the work of transgender film creators, today announced the eight participants selected for its inaugural Career Development Lab at TFC. The lab is supported by Netflix’s Fund for Creative Equity, which builds new opportunities for underrepresented communities in entertainment.
The lab, a first-of-its-kind career accelerator exclusively for trans creators working in film and television, is a 12-week intensive that will provide its inaugural class unique insights, instruction and guidance from working industry professionals through on-site seminars, virtual workshops and behind-the-scenes experiences.
“Our mission is to bring more trans-made stories to the world, and we designed the lab to address the root of the opportunity, by helping more transgender creators find career success in TV and film,” said Sav Rodgers, TFC’s executive director.
Participants were selected from hundreds of initial applications using a rubric that considered criteria including potential, readiness, need and values. The process first narrowed submitted applicants to finalists by evaluating work samples, career histories and personal essays. The TFC selection committee interviewed each finalist live, and then deliberated to identify the eight chosen participants.
“I would describe our discussion as passionate and very purpose-driven,” Rodgers said. “We had so many terrific candidates and only eight positions, so we were intensely aware of making choices directly based on our criteria and guidelines, and I’m excited by the diverse talent we’ve brought together.”
The selected participants are, with bios below:
Amanda Cruz Gonzalez (they/them)
Elliott Feliciano (he/they)
Alexandra Grey (she/her)
Sir Lex Kennedy (he/they/sir)
Sepi Mashiahof (she/they)
Xoài Pham (she/her)
Ingrid Raphaël (they/them)
Georden West (they/them)
Each participant will receive travel support, accommodations for on-site experiences, and a $10,000 honorarium to offset time away from earning during the lab. They will also participate in hands-on experiences, including a behind-the-scenes look at a world-leading festival in collaboration with the Tribeca Festival.
Graduates of the lab will apply their new insights to a written career next-steps plan, supported by new industry contacts, their expanded peer network and lab resources.
Follow the lab’s participants and their progress throughout the program on TFC’s Instagram, @transfilmcenter.
2024 TRANSGENDER FILM CENTER CAREER DEVELOPMENT LAB PARTICIPANTS
Amanda Cruz Gonzalez (they/them) is a queer, first generation Mexican-American, film producer. Their most recent productions include an array of narrative films, commercial projects, and documentaries. Having worked with Netflix, Paramount, and Premiere Entertainment they have expertise in film financing, sales, development, and producing. They are currently working as a freelance Creative Producer in both narrative and documentary. Amanda's ultimate goal is to continue amplifying the voices of BIPOC & LGBTQ+ community members through compelling stories, collaborations, and progressive business ventures.
Elliott Feliciano (he/they) is a trans Puerto Rican writer and director currently located in Los Angeles. He was born and raised in East Chicago, Indiana. While studying Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida, he developed a passion for telling Latinx and queer stories. He wrote and directed the short film To Be With You, which was an official selection at the 2019 Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival and the 2020 Bentonville Film Festival. Elliott has worked as a Set PA on the Netflix documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen, as a Writers’ PA on Starz’s Vida, FX’s Pose and American Horror Story, and as a Staff Writer on the CW’s Tom Swift. His goal is to create and develop more inclusive stories with LGBTQ+, BIPOC, and female centered characters.
Alexandra Grey (she/her) is a writer, director, actress, and producer from Chicago, Illinois. Raised in seven foster homes, she was determined not to be a stereotype and always follow her dreams of making it in show business. After high-school, she relocated to California where she began studying Drama at California State University Northridge and soon after began a career in television. She played minor trans characters on medical and drama shows before stepping behind the camera and writing, directing, and producing short films. As a proud trans woman of color, Alexandra continues to use her voice to elevate the LGBTQIA across media and entertainment.
Sir Lex Kennedy (he/they/sir) is a vegan, queer, black trans masculine media content creator who loves film, music, gardening and the beach and believes “ball is life”. Lex studied Comparative Women's Studies and Film at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA, before being forced to leave and finish his studies at the Los Angeles City College in their film program. As an artist and activist, Sir Lex strives to bring marginalized stories to the center of popular culture through comedy series and documentaries. Sir Lex has directed multiple short films featured in film festivals like Campus MovieFest, Newfest, Fusion and Outfest, through their inaugural OutSet program and across the world, winning numerous awards. Sir Lex completed a Sound Fellowship in the Fall of 2019 for ‘DISCLOSURE’, a documentary currently streaming on Netflix. Lex has worked as a Producer for Tribune Creative West/KTLA5 in Los Angeles, and currently works as the Audience Engagement Producer for ABC7/Disney in Glendale. Over the summer of 2020 he Produced and Assistant Directed on the short, ‘edible’. He is currently producing the pilot to his series RETROS!
Sepi Mashiahof (she/they) is a transfemme Iranian-American filmmaker, screenwriter, and musician. After a dissociative adolescence in Los Angeles and a hazy detour studying Literature at UCSC, she truly came of age in the underground arts and music community in Oakland, CA, where she co-founded the Scream Queens Radio program, served as Executive Director of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and was a member of the industrial no wave band SBSM. She has made two short films: "Love You Forever" and "Smooth" alongside a plethora of music videos for artists like Divide and Dissolve, The Bedroom Witch, and Beast Nest. The horror genre is her primary focus, and a generative space for her to tell nuanced and captivating stories about trans and queer life. Within her worlds, we find fairies causing queer bodies to actualize by rotting like fruit, aloof trans girls force-feminizing bigoted men, and intergenerational queer memories disrupting reality. Sepi is a Film Fatales Fellow, an SFTFF Dream Commission recipient, and was recently the director’s assistant on Jane Schoenbrun’s upcoming A24 horror film “I Saw The TV Glow.”
Xoài Pham (she/her) is a Vietnamese trans woman descended from warriors, healers, and shamans. She is a multidisciplinary artist and cultural strategist. Her work cultivates a collective imagination, where difference is celebrated and vulnerability is power. She has written poetry, fiction, cultural criticism, and is now venturing in screenwriting. Her work has been published most notably in POETRY, Esquire, Elle, and more. For the last decade, she’s devoted her storytelling to social change organizations working on issues, including health equity, immigration policy, and violence against transgender people through directing multimedia campaigns that span film, art curation, animation, and more. Her short documentary, The Songs of Water, is currently in post-production.
Ingrid Raphaël (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist, documentary and experimental film director, educator and programmer. They are in development for their first feature speculative Black-ecology genre film exploring a future in Philly without internet or technology. Its proof of concept has received support from the Center for Afrofuturist Studies and Independence Public Media Foundation, and the Trans Film Center. They co-founded the nomadic NO EVIL EYE CINEMA and co-design its programming which includes its alternative satelite film school FILM FUTURA. They are the co-director of the, Field of Vision commissioned, award-winning short doc They Won't Call It Murder; and have directed experimental short films like Ode to Cbus, Ohio and Movingbodyofwork screened at Anthology Film Archives and CineSpeak. Interested in archives, temporality, and community media, they've developed a myriad of film and art curriculums at Black Quantum Futurism, Film Futura, Eyebeam, Pwrplnt, Mono No Aware, CineSpeak, Bronx Museum of the Arts, PhillyCam and more.
Georden West (they/them) is a multimedia artist finding archival silence's speculative openings. They challenge traditional notions of preservation and offer a fresh perspective on the entanglement of queer histories. West’s PATRON SAINT won gold at the 46th Student Academy Awards, and their debut feature, PLAYLAND, world premiered at 2023 IFFR and premiered in North America at the Tribeca Festival. PLAYLAND participated in 2022 Gotham Week (formerly IFP) US features in post-production and the American Film Festival Poland's US in Progress program. PLAYLAND is slated for 2024 theatrical release with Juno Films. From 2021-22, West was an Academy Gold Women's Fellowship finalist, Fine Arts Work Center Visual Arts Fellow, Zurich Film Festival Academy member, and one of Filmmaker Magazine's “25 New Faces of Independent Film.”
