Shawna Virago is the artistic director of the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival (SFTFF). This year, the annual festival, now in its 24th year, is dedicated to films by transgender and gender-nonconforming filmmakers, highlighting innovative, experimental, and outside-the-box films.

SFTFF runs online from November 11-14, with a rich offering of seven new short film programs and 42 films, featuring a range of genres from documentaries and politics to animation, dance, music, romance, coming-of-age tales, and thrillers.

RELATED: The San Francisco Transgender Film Festival Announces 2021 Line Up & Dates

Virago has said: “This year’s festival features powerful and vibrant film works that showcase trans and gender-non-conforming communities’ resilience and strength along with their street smarts, sass, sexuality, friendship, humor, and courage. Virago continued, “It’s deeply personal and imperative to tell our trans stories — the stories that mainstream media platforms aren’t interested in telling — and share our filmmakers’ creative visions with audiences worldwide, making these films accessible from the comfort of home.”

Photo above: Lydia Daniller

#GAYNRD spoke to the multi-hyphenate trans superstar about the festival and more.

What are your main criteria when evaluating a film for the festival? We evaluate films that offer empowered visions for movement-building, social justice, and radical artistic visions. We value the intersectional, experimental, and the non-linear.  But within this, we screen music videos, thrillers, rom-coms, documentaries, and more.  People can find this out for themselves and watch our 7 programs. All programs are offered on a pay-what-you-can sliding scale and are closed-captioned for Deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. Tickets start at $0.

What is different (and what is similar) about the Transgender experience as compared to the Gay/Bisexual experience? There’s a belief in LGBT civil rights, that visibility is the most important part of securing your rights. Transgender people, despite there being a few public celebrities, have to weigh carefully when or how to come out, or remain out as a transgender person. Transgender people are over four times more likely than cisgender people to experience violence. Black and Latinx transgender women experience the most violence, sexual assault, and murder.

Do you foresee a time when the Transgender movement is independent?  We’re independent now. You need to look no further than this year’s San Francisco Transgender Film Festival and all the amazing films we’re presenting. Most of these films were made for almost no budget. And like so much neglected art making, most of the filmmakers we present are not only cutting edge, they are the edge.

Photo above: Sean Dorsey

Do you feel like recent events like the controversy around Dave Chappelle’s comedy elevate the conversation? We live in a country founded on genocide, racism, and sexism. For the past 500 years, any day of the week, you can find lots of hatred and oppression, coupled with alarmism at anything or anyone trying to point the needle to a more just society. 

Dave Chappelle can say what he likes, he has free speech. But free speech is still a responsibility to treat people with basic respect and dignity.   There is a long line of other cis-comedians, writers, and politicians who express transphobic ideas.  Dave Chappelle is the latest but won’t be the last.

What are some of the Transgender-specific issues that need to be addressed? Almost half of white Americans don’t think racism exists, nor that white supremacy exists.  Millions of people are afraid of getting a COVID-vaccination because they don’t know what they’re putting into their bodies, but every day these same people ingest mystery meat hotdogs and all kinds of cancer-causing products.  The country is being held captive by retrograde politicians and billionaires.  These are but a few examples of the culture at large we live in. A culture of violence and ignorance.  This is the backdrop that transgender people are trying to shift, to simply get basic respect. We are the targets of ongoing anti-transgender legislation, as well as facing street violence, job discrimination, police abuse, contempt. The list goes on.  

And in spite of this, we are vibrant and brave and fierce.  We’re here to stay. 

Still, we need cis-gender people to get more involved and support us and challenge the hatred we face. 

Check out the festival, which begins Thursday.