Outlaw

A film by Alisa Lebow

1994 | 26 minutes | Color | DVD | Order No. 99090

License:

Format:

PRICE:

Host a screening

SYNOPSIS

Leslie Feinberg, a self-identified "gender outlaw" who has spent much of zir life passing as a man, speaks with passion and intelligence about zir experiences in this film manifesto. Raw and confrontational, this film asks its audience to examine their assumptions about the "nature" of gender and calls for more sensitivity and awareness of the human rights and the dignity of transgendered people. Feinberg is the author of STONE BUTCH BLUES (Firebrand), an account of a working-class lesbian who passes as a man.

PRESS

"*** Extremely useful...would serve as stimulus to healthy discussion."

Video Rating Guide for Libraries

"Hard-hitting, straight from the heart, with an excellent sense of humor...It's a must see."

Kate Bornstein Author, Gender Outlaw

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Alisa Lebow

Alisa Lebow is a writer and independent video- and filmmaker. In 1995 she completed a half-hour video on HIV and substance use in the gay Latino community entitled ASI ME GUSTA. In 1994 she made OUTLAW, starring Leslie Feinberg. Her other credits include Associate Producer on the award-winning documentary film about women and AIDS, THE HEART OF THE MATTER (Hollibaugh/ Retticker, 1994) which aired on POV in July 1994; and Line Producer on Ellen Spiro's ITVS-sponsored video, GREETINGS FROM OUT HERE (1993). Lebow has curated several film and video programs for The Festival in New York and a queer Jewish program for MIX '94, HAVA-NA-GAY-LA. Lebow is an adjunct professor of Cinema Studies at NYU where she is pursuing her PhD. (8/14)

Subject Areas

Gender Lesbian

Treyf

TREYF —“unkosher” in Yiddish— is an unorthodox documentary by and about two Jewish lesbians who met and fell in love at a Passover “seder”. With personal narration, real and imagined educational films, and haunting imagery, filmmakers Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky examine the Jewish identity of their upbringings and its impact on their lives. Incisive cultural critics, astute, poignant, and poetic—never cynical—they weave their way from New York to Jerusalem in pursuit of a progressive, secular Jewish identity that draws from their childhood reminiscences as much as from their contemporary queer lives. As referenced in Alisa Lebow’s book First Person Jewish, TREYF is iconoclastic and intelligent, humorous and poignant, a personal journey from kibbutz summers to coming out, from keeping kosher to “Bat Mitzvahs.” A reflection on culture, community, and individual desire, this witty film follows the filmmakers as they discover what they thought was most profoundly “treyf” about their worldviews still has roots in Jewish history.

Learn more

Deep Run

Executive produced by Susan Sarandon, DEEP RUN is a powerful verité portrait of trans life in rural North Carolina. Exiled by her family and rejected by an ex-partner, 17-year-old Spazz has no one to lean on for support. But when Spazz falls in love again and summons up the courage to become Cole, a strong-willed trans-man, his candid humor and steadfast, all-inclusive Christian beliefs counter the bigotry he experiences daily. This deeply personal documentary reveals rebirth and courage within America’s deeply conservative Bible Belt as Cole struggles to find a church that will affirm his identity and the couple's relationship. With a small group of supportive friends, relatives, and his girlfriend, Ashley, Cole's search for love and belonging leads him to a radical revision of what faith and church can be. An intimate study of young outsiders in an insular Christian community, DEEP RUN explores the intersection of modern identity and faith in the American South. Essential viewing for LGBTQIA Audiences, Queer and Gender studies classes.