The Ties That Bind (2017)

The Ties That Bind is a personal documentary that captures the filmmaker's NC family as they journey through years of conflict, loss, and adaptation in response to her younger sibling's transgender change. Filmed over a fourteen-year span, it provides a rare longitudinal and searing look at a Southern family wrestling with each other and their beliefs, exposing the shadow landscape of the culture wars at play as they seek a new normal. While the film foreshadows today's 'bathroom' politics, it is far less a transgender-focused story than a complex family story that weaves together a portrait of their imperfections and the love that remains intact even so.