Transformative cinema
Previewing the Sacramento International Film and Music Festival

By Kel Munger
This article was published on 07.22.10.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1458213

A polite, bearded young man from the folk duo Coyote Grace says he was "really worried about what the T would do to [his] voice." By "T," he means testosterone; he's one of a number of musicians, transgender men and women, who are pressing the boundaries of gender expression in music. Riot Acts: Flaunting Gender Deviance in Music Performance is one of the films screening at the 11th annual Sacramento International Film and Music Festival, which begins at the Crest Theatre this week.

Riot Acts, directed by Madsen Minax, is a revelation, if only because it deals with the transgender experience in such an affirming way. Minax eschews the typical, Oprah-esque "But whyyy?" question and obsessions with what happens to a transgender person's genitals to instead focus on the significance in the lives of, specifically, musicians who happen to be transgender.