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Documentary Time

CASA SUSANNA

• Director: Sébastien Lifshitz
• FRANCE, USA / 2022 / DCP / Colour / 97’ / English; Turkish s.t.

• Director of Photography: Paul Guilhaume
• Editing: Tina Baz
• Cast: Katılanlar With: Katherine Cumminngs, Diana Merry-Shapiro, Betsy Wollheim, Gregory Bagarozy
• Producer: Muriel Meynard
• Production Co.: Agat Films, Arte France, American Experience Films
• World Sales: Agat Films

In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills region of New York, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers. Known as ‘Casa Susanna,’ the house provided a safe place for transgender women and cross-dressing men to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed—without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for dressing as they wish. Told through the memories of those whose visits to the house would change their lives, the film provides a moving look back at a secret world where the persecuted and frightened found freedom, acceptance, and often, the courage to live their lives out of the shadows. It tells a story full of noise and fury, rich in extraordinary characters, including the famous Susanna Valenti, who created this refuge. The latest documentary by Sébastien Lifshitz, director of Little Girl and Bambi made its premiere at Venice Film Festival.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.