Becoming Jamie: Shock and Joy

Synopsis

I am no longer transgender. I am a woman.

Becoming Jamie: Shock & Joy is the story of Jamie Peebles, who always thought she was a man. At age 63 she realized “like a bolt of lightning” she's a woman. We follow her excruciating and wonderful transition for a year. This feature documentary is Jamie’s personal, revelatory, hilarious, sometimes joyful, and always poignant story told through video diaries and intimate, cinema verité confessions to Roger, her friend of 40 years.

Shock: At home near Boston, seeing her image in her mirror brings Jamie constant pain. She feels like a woman, but there’s this freaky bald man looking back at her. Being misgendered is devastating; raising her voice to sound more feminine is not working. Her daughter Tina is traumatized. Elaine, her ex-wife, must “rethink our thirty years of marriage.” Her brother Doug believes she’s faking being transgender; he hasn’t spoken to her in two years. After hundreds of hours of electrolysis, Jamie still has to shave….

Joy: On November 28, 2016 Roger filmed Jamie’s confirmation surgery in San Francisco. Not two months later, she experienced her first orgasm as a woman. "I think the female orgasm is the women’s best kept secret, and I've had both.” In August, 2017 her daughter Tina was married, a great joy.

Becoming Jamie is unlike any film about transgender people in release. Most films look back, they are not real-time diaries. Jamie's experiences are shared by many transgender people; her personal pain and elation are instantly relatable. Becoming Jamie demystifies what it means to be transgender and will help cisgenders (the rest of us) understand them.

Credits/Bios

Roger Sherman: Producer – Director – Cinematographer

A founder of Florentine Films, his films have won an Emmy, a Peabody, a James Beard Award, and two Academy Award nominations. His film Don’t Divorce the Children chronicles the experience of divorce from the child’s point of view, without experts. It became mandatory viewing in family courts in a dozen states. Charlie Rose called his film Alexander Calder “an American masterpiece.” The Wall Street Journal said about Richard Rodgers: The Sweetest Sounds, it’s “An extraordinary film biography, perhaps the best ever produced in the American Masters series.” Roger’s latest film, In Search of Israeli Cuisine, a portrait of the Israeli people told through food, conflict and all, has been shown in over 150 film festivals and special screenings around the world and in thirty-eight theaters across the country.

Jamie Peebles: Producer – Cinematographer

A brilliant engineer, she built the studios of Oxygen Media and Current TV for Al Gore. She’s worked as a photographer, college professor, home builder, and real estate agent.

Click website below to learn more about Becoming Jamie and Roger Sherman.