Logan Rozos and Lexie Bean's documentary sensitively tell the stories behind the statistics. At an early point in “What Will I Become?,” co-director Logan Rozos explains to the camera, “We are not taken seriously, so we have to take ourselves very seriously.” The film he has made, with Lexie Bean, tackles the crisis of transmasculine suicide head-on, while adding specificity and poignant remembrance. Though it mostly avoids being a PSA, some statistics have to be mentioned when more than 50% of transmasculine boys attempt suicide.
This documentary, through the personal experience of the filmmakers, tries to answer the question of why. Having premiered at the Berlinale in February and screened at last week’s BlackStar festival, it deserves to find a larger audience outside the fest circuit. Both Bean and Rozos appear copiously on screen and talk about their struggles with coming out and being accepted as trans.
However, they avoid making the film about themselves by highlighting the experience of two other young men, Blake Brockington and Kyler Prescott. Brockington appears in a lot of archival footage, including an interview where he tells his story in his own words. The filmmakers supplement that with scenes where an actor reads from Brockington’s diaries and poetry, giving the audience a full portrait of this protagonist.
In 2014, Brockington ran for and won the Prom King title at his North Carolina high school — becoming an inspiration for many transmasculine teenagers, including the filmmakers, at the time. He also faced a abuse and transphobia, both online and off, as a result. The filmmakers sensitively tell this story of unbridled hope followed by despair.
They let Brockington take center stage finally and insert themselves only sparingly. They show his impact on his friends, teachers, mentors and people he never met. These are the strongest passages of the film: Brockington’s voice is persuasive and the film renders it vividly.
They have less footage of Prescott — he appears mostly in photos, and one archival sequence where he plays the piano — so his story is told through his parents. Now divorced, they appear on camera to describe their experience with open vulnerability, from confusion to hope to grief. In these sequences, “What Will I Become?” becomes a story of how even the most understanding and supportive family cannot undo the harm inflicted by institutions and systems that are governed by policies and traditions that do not allow for visible trans expression.
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