Luis De Filippis is ready for a new era of trans representation
The Canadian filmmaker talks about her award-winning debut feature, Something You Said Last Night
Luis De Filippis' debut feature, Something You Said Last Night, is being praised for telling a different kind of trans story — one where the main character is neither exoticized nor traumatized.
Like her award-winning 2017 short film For Nonna Anna, Something You Said Last Night draws heavily on the filmmaker's relationship with her Italian-Canadian family.
"Where the two films align, I think, is that they're both about trans women ... being accepted and seen as intrinsic members of their family," De Filippis says in an interview with Q guest host Talia Schlanger. "They're sisters, they're daughters, they're granddaughters first, and they're trans women second….
"A lot of the times when we see trans women with their family, it's a story about acceptance — it's a story about the family coming to terms with it. And it's like, OK, that's all fair, but what happens after?"
Something You Said Last Night follows a trans woman in her mid-20s named Ren (Carmen Madonia) as she and her younger sister (Paige Evans) reluctantly accompany their parents on a family vacation.
Beyond receiving awards at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and San Sebastián Film Festival, the film received a huge endorsement from actor and model Julia Fox when she signed on as an executive producer late last month.
For De Filippis, there's something "quietly revolutionary" about depicting a loving relationship between a trans woman and her family, rather than centring the story on trans trauma.
Something You Said Last Night eschews stereotypical representations of how a traditional Italian-Catholic family might treat their daughter or a member of the queer community, which reflects De Filippis' own family dynamic.
"When I initially came out to my nonna and I told her that I was trans, she looked at me and she was just like, 'OK, but that's not a problem because Jesus loves everyone,'" she recalls.
"My mother was in the room and she was like, 'But ma, what's everyone going to say?' And [my nonna] was just like, 'Luis, you do what you need to do. You leave everyone to me.' And I think at the heart of it, like a trans girl in an Italian family, it's not always the case, but what I've experienced is just the matriarchs in my life kind of closing ranks and just being like, 'She is who she is. And if you're going to f–k with her, you're going to f–k with us.'"
WATCH | Official trailer for Something You Said Last Night:
Another trope that De Filippis rejects is that trans women are unhappy with how they look and are constantly in pursuit of wanting to be someone different.
"When I look at my trans friends and I look at how they move through the world, they are the most confident in themselves," she says. "They are the most stunning. They're the most beautiful people when we go to wherever we go. You know, we walk in the room and eyes are on us. And I think that's kind of the confidence that I wanted to portray….
"I think what's important, too, is to note that [Ren's] sister doesn't have the same confidence … because I think that's another trope we see in films: the idea of the trans woman comparing herself to her sister, where this time it's like, well, maybe her sister's actually comparing herself to the trans woman."
De Filippis says her own confidence was something she learned, particularly from her nonna who had a "joyous energy" and seemed to have never been upset a day in her life.
"I have to say that when we'd go to the beach, she would show up in her skimpy two-piece bikinis and had no problem walking up and down that beach, and never felt the need to cover up," says De Filippis. "She was like 80 years old and looked great. But also a lot of the other women her age did not wear those outfits and did not have the same kind of confidence that my grandmother did."
Making Something You Said Last Night further strengthened De Filippis' confidence.
"It gave me confidence to say no with a period," she tells Schlanger. "I think ultimately this film just gave me some peace in a way. Like, I can put this chapter of my life away and move on to the next chapter."
The full interview with Luis De Filippis is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Interview with Luis De Filippis produced by Vanessa Greco.
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