THRESHOLD

An autobiographical documentary made by a mother who follows the gender transition of her adolescent son: between 2016 and 2019 she interviews him addressing the conflicts, certainties and uncertainties that pervade him in a deep search for his identity. At the same time, the mother, revealed through a first-person narration and by her voice behind the camera that talks to her son, also goes through a process of transformation required by the situation that life presents her with by breaking old paradigms, facing fears and dismantling prejudices.

CORACI RUIZ

Coraci has a degree in Dance (2002), a Master in Audiovisual Culture and Media (2009) and a PhD in Multimedia (2020), all from Unicamp (SP/Brazil). Also part of her background is the 2005 EICTV documentary filmmaking workshop. She has been a documentary filmmaker since 2003, when she participated in the foundation of the production company Laboratorio Cisco. She works mainly as director and director of photography for documentaries. Among her main productions are the feature films Threshold (2020) and Letters to Angola (2012), which has participated in more than 30 festivals in 16 countries and was awarded prizes in Brazil, Angola, Portugal and Belgium; and the short films Nostalgia, video letters to Cuba (2005), Another City (2009), Letters from Exile (2015) and Strong Feather (2019). She is currently working on a feature film Blooming on the asphalt (selected for the LAB DOC of DOCSP 2020, with tutoring by Marta Andreu, and for the WIP of Conecta Chile, is expected to premiere in 2021).

• Hot Docs / Canada
• Festival Mix / Brazil — Best Direction
• For Rainbow / Brazil — Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Photography, Best Sound
• Ethnocineca Vienna / Austria — Opening Film

Threshold is an intimate autobiographical documentary that I began to make as soon as my eldest son, then 15, told me he was having doubts about his gender identity. At first I felt lost, and I thought filming would be a way to get closer to him and understand what was happening. The same year I had started my doctorate, and this personal experience eventually redirected my research. So the years between 2016 and 2020 were of great intensity, a real dive into the issues of gender and sexuality that involved my family and professional life — both as a documentarist and a researcher.

DOKer 2021 — Dok Therapy