Metamorphosis (1990)
(58 minutes) 16mm, color, Optical Track
Director: Lisa Leeman
Grant Awarded to: Lisa Leeman
Archive: UCLA Film & Television Archive
“Metamorphosis” is a one-hour 16mm documentary that intimately follows Gabi, an evangelical animation artist, as she transitions her outward presentation of gender over three years in the late 1980’s – at home, at work, with family, and at church. The film premiered at Sundance, 1990, winning the Sundance Filmmakers Trophy Award and and was broadcast on POV, PBS’s flagship series for independent documentary films.
In the 1980’s, before she could be ‘approved’ for gender-confirmation surgery, Gabi was required to ‘prove’ that she could ‘successfully’ live and work as a woman, 24 hours a day, for at least one year. We see Gabi sorting out her masculine and feminine traits, undergoing facial plastic surgery, electrolysis, hormone therapy, and psychological counseling. A lively discussion among Gabi’s co-workers raises questions about the very nature of masculinity and femininity. Gabi attends a transgender support group, and wrestles throughout the film with religious conflicts. By the end of the film she reconciles with her mother, and triumphantly attends her twentieth high school reunion.
Still from Metamorphosis (1990)
Lisa Leeman is a MacDowell, Yaddo, and Bogliasco Fellow, a member of the Motion Picture Academy, former president of the International Documentary Association, a professor and endowed chair at the University of Southern California. She co-chairs the Documentary Producers Alliance’s Ethics Subcommittee.
Lisa’s award-winning feature documentaries illuminate contemporary social issues through intimate character-driven stories that follow protagonists over years at turning points in their lives. Roger Ebert cited Leeman’s One Lucky Elephant as one of the best documentaries of 2011. She is currently directing Walk by Me, a follow-up to her groundbreaking first film, Metamorphosis (Sundance Filmmakers Trophy; POV/PBS, 1990).
