Director Lucia Puenzo's daring film
about an intersex teenage girl asked to decide on her sex opens in
New York today.
XXY is the story of Alex, raised
a girl her entire life she possesses both male and female sets of
reproductive organs. Now at puberty she is being asked to “choose”
her sex by her parents who have invited a plastic surgeon to discuss
the issue with her. Complications arise when Alex develops a crush
on Alvaro the surgeon's teenage son. He also is suffering gender
identity issues. Alex's search for her true identity forces both
families to face their worst fears.
The film's powerful message of love
transcending sexuality is only heightened by its beautiful
backgrounds and dramatic visual style.
Puenzo, who wrote the script based on
the short story Cinismo by Sergio Bizzio (also her husband),
talks about the film in a candid interview on the website Cinema
Without Borders (www.cinenawithoutborders.com).
She says about her subject matter, “I
was especially interested in the dilemma of inevitable choice. These
young people must not only choose between living as a man or a woman,
but they also struggle with the decision of whether to live as a
singularly gendered person or with an identity that recognizes
intersex itself as an identity and not merely as a place of passage.”
“...I wanted to find a way to show
them [Alex and Alvaro] in a small love story between two very young
persons who, while they were falling in love, would be discovering
their identity.”
“...I would say XXY speaks
about freedom of choice, identity and desire.”
XXY has won numerous prestigious
film festival awards across the globe. In the US, XXY won an
Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
The film is set to be screened in the
following cities: New York (May 2nd), Boston (May 21st),
Portland (May 30th), San Francisco (August 1st),
Berkeley (August 1st), Washington DC (August 15th),
and Los Angeles (August 15th).