Sheila Coto | Ell=(Ella) (She) / 2012

a difficult situation

by Douglas Messerli

 

Sheila Coto (screenwriter and director) Ell=(Ella) (She) / 2012 [10 minutes]

 

Into the worst of all possible boarding schools at the beginning of a new semester comes a transfer student, Lucía (Elizabeth Mía Chorubczyk) who immediately interests the best of all possible group of students, particularly Carolina (Micaela Calmet), who immediately introduces the newby to her best friends, Flor (Florencia, played by Giannina Elizabeth Bellotti), and Edgar (Maxi Escalante).

     They help make Lucía feel immediately comfortable and envelope her almost immediately with friendship and kisses, even while a nearby male student, Willy, whispers to his girlfriend that he doesn’t know whether or not the new student is a girl or a boy.

      Their biology teacher (Sheila Coto) certainly seems clear as to the gender identity of the new student. As she calls out the class names, she finds in her list the name of Lucía as Juan Márquez, and although Lucía corrects the name, answering present, the professor insists, “Here it’s Juan.” But people call me Lucía, the clearly transgender student replies. “But here it’s Juan,” the teacher reiterates, soon after dragging the poor girl down the hall to the principal’s office to get the matter settled.

      The institutional head immediately gets on the phone to Lucía’s father in an attempt to explain the problem. Although we cannot hear the arguments made by Sr. Márquez, it’s quite clear that he fully supports his daughter’s sexual change and tries to explain what being transgender is all about. But the principal will hear nothing of it, arguing merely that it’s a very difficult situation, a true shock for her “serious institution.” Just as they don’t allow pupils to wear beards or allow boys with long hair, so they cannot permit a male student to dress as a woman and call herself by a female name.

      We can almost hear the father attempting to explain the facts to her, but she insists it has nothing at all to do with what he is saying. It is simply against regulations, arguing that he is not listening to her. The school has to evaluate this situation, she declares.

      Meanwhile, her new friends are standing outside the principal’s office attempting to understand what’s going on, but are told by the biology teacher and others to go away. Evidently the father does convince them to meet with him the next morning.

      Standing outside another classroom, they are worried about their new friend being expelled, but are told by that teacher as well that they must immediately come inside or will be marked absent.

      That evening they gather in one of their homes, engaging themselves in what looks to be a sewing and painting session. We can’t quite make out what they’re doing, but we do guess that it has something to do with the fate of Lucía. And the next morning we begin to make sense of their activities, as they pass out name homemade cloth name bands. Grabbing Lucía, they ask her to close her eyes as they pull her into the classroom where she discovers a great many of her student

peers wearing the name tags, the women all bearing the name “Juan,” while the male students proudly bear the name upon shirts of Lucía.

 

     Whatever the outcome of the narrow-minded administrator’s meeting with Sr. Márquez, Lucía now knows, perhaps for the first time in her life, that she has finally made friends with her fellow classmates and his totally accepted by them for who she is.

       Even if Argentina director Sheila Coto’s film seems rather unbelievable given the attitudes we still hear about even from within the schools, it’s certainly nice to imagine that such a world is replacing the old one of impervious rules and regulations and gender has become something chosen as opposed to simply being assigned.

 

Los Angeles, April 1, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).