On display screen, she performs a Mexican trans lady, an undocumented immigrant, and a Latinx livery driver who’s attempting to make it in New York. However off display screen, Salvadoran-American actress Carlie Guevara urges viewers to look previous labels to see her character in all her complexity and sweetness—somebody who will be your greatest good friend, your sister, your granddaughter, a lady who sits subsequent to you on the bus.
Guevara says she will be able to relate.
“As a trans woman, I can only speak for myself, that’s not all that I want to be remembered as,” Guevara advised NBC Information. “It’s just a matter of fact. It’s a lifelong thing. And it can be a mark that you carry on your back. But I think viewers can extrapolate that experience as being anything that is the “other” in society. And when you are the “other,” you wear a target on your back.”
Guevara performs Tina Carrera within the award-winning LGBTQ movie “The Garden Left Behind,” which releases in digital theaters nationwide Friday, and VOD on September 8. It tells the story of Carrera as she begins her transitioning course of with out medical insurance, and struggles to construct a snug life together with her grandmother Eliana (performed by Miriam Cruz) in Queens, New York. The film additionally stars Michael Masden and Ed Asner.
The film garnered the Viewers Award on the 2019 SXSW Movie Competition.
Guevara, who grew up in Jamaica, Queens, says that trans girls are sometimes proven in films via a giant reveal or a giant deception that places their id and love relationships in an unrealistic mild. That’s the reason Brazilian director Flavio Alves labored with the forged to point out Tina and her girlfriends in a pure mild that makes them relatable to everybody.
“We took a different approach,” Alves mentioned. “We didn’t want to show Tina only as a trans woman. We wanted to show her with her friends, her family, and the love of her life. We wanted to present her as a human.”
By emphasizing on a regular basis life, “The Garden Left Behind” goals to remove the taboo and stigma of being a trans lady and an undocumented immigrant. And this method can compel viewers to alter the best way they see outsiders and join with them on acquainted phrases.
“Being trans, being Latinx, and being an undocumented immigrant are small parts of her whole experience,” mentioned Alves. “And I hope that viewers can see trans women as whole humans who are like you and me.”
In the end, “The Garden Left Behind” is pushed by Tina’s quest for happiness. Throughout a significant scene, her good friend Amanda (performed by Ivana Black) challenges Eliana to alter her perspective. As a substitute of questioning why Tina is transitioning, Amanda advises her to ask whether or not her granddaughter is pleased.
In doing so, the movie cues viewers to attach with Tina on a primary human degree.
“Who Tina is on paper is not who she is in life,” Guevara mentioned. “But she is focused on moving forward. And the idea of becoming someone is very relatable.”
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