XY Chelsea

Tim Travers Hawkins / United Kingdom / 2019 / Czech Premiere / 92 min.

synopsis

In 2017, the transgender woman Chelsea Manning was released from prison after serving seven of the thirty-five years she had been sentenced to for publishing, while still the soldier Bradley Manning, secret American videos and documents about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The film clarifies what led to her actions and her transformation, and also looks at the position of transgender people in the American prison system. It follows Manning from her first steps after her release to meetings with the friends who supported her during her time in prison and her entry into the world of politics, which changes significantly with the presidency of Donald Trump.

“My vision for this film was then, and has remained, a character-driven film in which the personal and political are woven and collide in the most spectacular contemporary style.” T. Travers Hawkins

biography

Tim Travers-Hawkins was born in Great Britain, but has worked in Argentina and Columbia. He studied film at Cuba’s EICTV film and television school, and immediately celebrated success with his first short animated film 1000 Voices (2009), which, like his short documentary Surpriseville (2010), was shown at numerous international film festivals. XY Chelsea is his feature-length debut.