Girl-Hearted
It's quite clear to 7-year old Nori: she is a girl because she has a girl's heart, but her body is that of a boy. For five years, mother and son argued about his appearance. The neighbors start gossiping. Then one day, the boy reveals to his mother that he wants a wizard to turn his penis into a vagina so he could be a “real” girl. Josephin realizes that she doesn’t have a son, that he never existed – but that there is still a child, a daughter. It becomes clear that she will have to break new ground to see her daughter grow up happy. The documentary portrays the conflict young Nori and her mother face in trying to enable a life worth living outside of the norm. A film about being a girl.
Anne Scheschonk, born in 1977, studied Media Sciences and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Visual Anthropology. She worked as an editorial assistant and set manager for television productions before finishing the Professional Media Master Class (PMMC) for documentary film in Halle, Germany, in 2011. Today, she works as a freelance author and filmmaker. Her documentary works portray those perceived as “other“, who are often socially stigmatized: the intellectually disabled mother, the transgender kid… Scheschonk believes that sensitive portraits of such individuals raise questions about identity and point to the relevant issues of our times: inclusion, equal rights, and transphobia. She lives with her son in Halle, Germany.