Intro
Intro
the Pearl explores the raw emotional and physical experience of being a middle aged to senior transgender woman against the backdrop of post-industrial logging towns in the Pacific Northwest. The film leans into the struggle of those who were reared and successful as men and have reached middle age or later with a burdensome secret that they can no longer keep.
We travel with four women, all in extremely early stages of coming out, as they attend the Esprit Conference - an annual event in northernmost Washington where transgender women that have lived closeted their whole lives come together in an environment that allows them to express their true identity. From here we follow these same 4 women over the course of nearly 3 years as they grapple with varying degrees of transition.
Filmmakers
Filmmakers
Director / Cinematographer JESSICA DIMMOCK is the recipient of the 2014 Infinity Award for Photojournalist of The Year from the International Center of Photography and the 2013 World Press Photo Multimedia Contest as the director and cinematographer of the web feature “Too Young To Wed.” In 2010, Dimmock won Kodak's Best Cinematography Award at the Hamptons International Film Festival for WITHOUT, which she also produced. The film received an Independent Spirit Award and was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award. Along with co-director Christopher LaMarca she was listed as one of the 25 New Faces of Film in 2014 by Filmmaker Magazine. Clients include HBO, Showtime, CNN, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and California Sunday Magazine.
Director/Cinematographer CHRISTOPHER LAMARCA had his directorial debut with two documentary films in 2016. His film Boone premiered at SXSW in the Visions section and The Pearl premiered at TRUE/FALSE and won Grand Jury Prize at Dallas International Film Festival. He was named one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine in 2014 and is a Sundance Institute Edit and Story lab film fellow. His monograph Forest Defenders: The Confrontational American Landscape was published by pOwerhouse books. His work has been exhibited at the International Center of Photography’s Triennial Exhibition Ecotopia and included in publications such as Aperture and American Photography. Christopher contributes to Rollingstone magazine, GQ and Mother Jones among others.
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