The award-winning documentary DISCLOSURE, now on Netflix, explores the history of transgender representation in TV and film. Director Sam Feder, producer Amy Scholder, and executive producer Laverne Cox prioritized hiring trans people behind the camera. When a trans person couldn’t be found with a certain skill, a cisgender person mentored a trans person in that role, providing on-the-job training.
As part of Trans Awareness Week, GLAAD is partnering with DISCLOSURE to launch a profile series showcasing the trans crew who contributed behind-the-scenes, providing a model for other productions telling stories with inclusion and authenticity at the center to replicate.
Director Sam Feder shared with Filmmaker Magazine the impetus for instituting this production model:
We created the set we always wanted to be part of. While mentors shared their technical experiences, mentees shared life experiences and perspectives. One mentor, our chief lighting technician Dessie Coale, was so moved that she instituted the first trans sensitivity training at IATSE, the largest tech union in the world. If a small indie doc can do that, projects with studio backing certainly can as well.
Get to know the trans crew behind @DisclosureDoc in the #DisclosureBTS series, and find out how the experience of making of DISCLOSURE made a significant impact on their lives, on the lives of so many others, and the film industry itself.
On November 18, GLAAD hosted the first live watch and tweet event of DISCLOSURE with Zeke Smith taking over GLAAD’s handle, Tiq Milan taking over DISCLOSURE’s, Rain Valdez, Alexandra Grey, Tre’vell Anderson, Director Sam Feder, Nick Adams (GLAAD’s Director of Transgender Representation) all of the film alongside community partners including Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund (TLDEF), SAGE, National Black Justice Coalition, Anti-Violence Project, National Center for Civil and Human Rights, and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls.