When it comes to depicting raw, emotional honesty about the societal expectations placed on trans women, Geena Rocero is not playing dress up.
In her debut short film, Dolls, an endearing term for a trans woman or transfeminine person within the community, something strange is afoot. Featuring an all-trans women cast and produced by Lilly Wachowski, the 18-minute sci-fi thriller follows Yan (Yên Sen), a private investigator who secretly infiltrates a self-help dating workshop for trans women in the hopes of finding a missing girl. However, when she zeros in on Gene (Rocero), the charismatic yet power-hungry leader of the workshop, and bonds with the attendees, leading her to question her own identity, she starts to realize that perhaps this therapeutic space might actually be a sinister cult. Rocero’s short explores themes of identity, empowerment, and defying outside judgment and perception.
Here, the award-winning filmmaker speaks to Deadline about how her experience in the community informed her debut short film.
DEADLINE: Outside of your Covid-19 set documentary, Caretakers, it seems that Dolls is your first narrative short film. What led you to this moment?
GEENA ROCERO: There’s a confluence of so many things. I had a production company and have been producing docuseries and other nonfiction projects.
DEADLINE: Right, I mean, as if you aren’t already doing enough, you’re also an activist, an author and a model. How did you even find the time?
ROCERO: It was when I was writing my memoir, Horse Barbie, during the pandemic, it was one of those things where I went back to my childhood, which I couldn’t help but look back on because I’m a visual storyteller. I thought about my story regarding my trans pageant culture experience in the Philippines and Catholicism. As a trans pageant diva, I was immersed in a deeply emotional, swirling journey. So, when I was writing my memoir, I noticed something else I wanted to explore further.
DEADLINE: What was the inspiration point for Dolls?
ROCERO: I wrote this short in the summer of last year. Originally, it was supposed to be a different sort of character study, but then three people close to me started sharing these painful, emotional things they were going through. Someone was experiencing chronic pain that took over their body in an intense way. A dear girlfriend of mine was processing relationship trauma while still being in the relationship, and then another friend shared his experience regarding childhood sexual abuse. Hearing these stories from them was intense and overwhelming. But as an artist, I decided to follow my instinct and tell a story to process what I was feeling and hearing – so I tabled the other project and started writing this one. From there, I layered my interests. I love the sci-fi genre, sci-fi thrillers and espionage. Stepford Wives is a favorite of mine. So, I tried to figure out how to infuse this workshop relationship setting and [characters finding] healing and filter that to this very specific, painful, intimate experience that I was going through. That led to the idea of this private investigator investigating the Dolls.
Dolls
Street Pageant Productions
DEADLINE: Why important was it for you to cast all transgender actors?
ROCERO: For this particular story, as I have other projects that don’t have all trans characters, it called for that. I’m in New York City. I have a very vibrant trans community, friends, collaborators, artists and performers around me. I’m so blessed to have a circus of friends who are in the arts. So, I wanted this to be full of trans women because the story called for it, but also because I’ve never seen all trans women in a sci-fi thriller or in the genre before. I wanted to explore that while still being playful and campy, and maintaining this tension.
DEADLINE: The workshop setting fascinates me. Have you ever attended anything like this? Why was it important to tell the story this way?
ROCERO: Many reasons. I was a pageant diva at 15 in the Philippines, and that culture is so mainstream there. So, during my formative years, I was put into those intense training courses that teach you how to walk, how to move your hand, and how to project your image. When I gave my TED Talk, I had a speech coach who taught me how to bring my internal motivation outward to project the message I was conveying more effectively. And again, looking back at my childhood, there’s a section in the film where a lot of people asked, “Where did Hugadoo [the dance sequence in Dolls, based on a Filipino children’s game called Shagidi Shagidi Shapopo] come from?” But the idea is that you’re usually playing this with a childhood friend, a neighbor, or the whole community, and you make a body movement, and the next person follows. Once everybody is participating, it becomes a swirl of body movement that becomes very hypnotic. So, I wanted to capture my different experiences in this setting.
DEADLINE: When the Dolls gather in a circle to scream out their affirmations about being worthy as people and being worthy to be loved with such frustration and anger, I really love the way you shoot from above, it’s cool but also haunting.
ROCERO: Now that you’ve brought that scene up, I’m reminded that it was actually three scenes that we had to combine into one because we ran out of time, and this is a short film with a limited budget [laughs]. This is when I absolutely had to rely on the trust of my longtime collaborators, my cinematographer Patrick Ryan Morris and my producers, who were like, “We need to condense this. What’s the most important thing we need to communicate here?” And in the previous scene, we see the Dolls getting hypnotized by the [dance] movement and by Gene, who is in charge of the workshop. That one scene is a culmination of what all of them are processing, their emotional trauma, their relationship problems, and Gene is testing them to see if they are really willing to share a truth that they were experiencing at that moment.
DEADLINE: What themes are you trying to get through to the audience as they watch this short?
ROCERO: The central character here is Yan, the private investigator. The point of view is from her as she goes through this investigation. The Gene character is there to create that world that she’s entering. And I hinted that she’s a junior private investigator in this other world, and she thinks, “OK, I need to move up the ranks.” But then her mentor told her she really needs to dig deeper to do the type of job she does. I also have to say that Lilly Wachowski said that she thinks this is an investigation into trans identity and assimilation. To assimilate, you try to cover up things about yourself to fit in, but in Yan’s line of work, you need to actually uncover parts of yourself that you haven’t explored, that you thought you had forgotten.
So, what I’m exploring here is someone born and raised in a completely different culture, with notions of assimilation that people adapt to survive different environments. I’m from a completely different culture, so that’s a language I’m very familiar with as a survival mechanism. To live a really well-realized life, I feel like you have to dig into parts of yourself you think you have to cover up.
DEADLINE: Would you like to elaborate on how this short also aligns with you as a person?
ROCERO: There are many ways this short is so me. I’m someone who is very comfortable in an ensemble. As I’ve mentioned, my formative years were from 15 to 17, when I became a trans pageant diva in the Philippines. Next thing I knew, my trans mother, who was managing me, created our own clan of beauty pageant queens. And from that dynamic of being in an ensemble with people who have different psychological dramas going on, from ambition to jealousy, I had to learn how to exist cohesively in a competitive community that we all shared.
The other part is that in the Philippines, because of the visibility of trans folks and trans women, it’s embedded in our culture. I got to dream and create my own world, which opened up possibilities for me and what I wanted to do in the future. There’s no notion of explaining our transness; it’s in our language. I always believed that trans women and trans people can be central characters and have their own narratives. But moving to America gave me a different, more complicated narrative. I was 17 years old when I moved here. The first question I asked my mom was, “Where’s the trans beauty pageants? I want to join.” And she told me there was no such thing. But she did tell me that [unlike the Philippines] I could be legally recognized on my documents with a [female] gender marker. So, that gave me a different [access point to my life].
Being a fashion model in 2005 in New York City was also a learning experience for me because I was essentially stealth for eight years, because at the time, being an out and proud trans pageant model was not allowed. My modeling agent didn’t know I was transgender, nor did people outside of a very small circle of friends. I joke about it now, but I think this is why I love the espionage genre, because I felt like I was living a double life. I had to protect my cover. I was in a clandestine operation in the fashion industry, yet I was so visible on magazine covers, in John Legend’s music video [“Number One”], and in Times Square advertisements. I had to be so conscious about concealing myself while managing that dual reality.
Dolls
Street Pageant Productions
DEADLINE: What are some words of affirmation you have for yourself now?
ROCERO: I’ve been in many rooms. I feel very, very close to all my friends in the Philippines. Sometimes people say the phrase “imposter syndrome.” And I understand that notion, but maybe because of the training I’ve gone through in my life, there’s an inner confidence in me. Yes, sometimes there’s a struggle, but I carry a lot of self-belief. As a storyteller, no matter who I’m meeting, whether it’s a president of a country, a CEO of a company, a fellow trans sister, or an activist, I have the belief that I’m competing with myself only, and I will win them all over.
DEADLINE: OK, back to your mention of Lilly Wachowski earlier, how did she get involved?
ROCERO: Originally, I met Lana in San Francisco when they were shooting Sense8. I was dancing [at a club], and they were just like, “You can dance, Geena. Can we record it?” And that dance sequence ended up in the opening scene of Sense8. So, that was wild, and that was my first introduction to them. When Horse Barbie was being shopped around for development, Lilly’s production company wanted to meet with me, and since then, we have had so many mutual friends. When I was finishing the film, I wanted to show Lily parts of it, and when we were close to finishing, she was like, “How is this your first film?” And basically, asked me how she could be of help. So, she joined as an EP and getting her approval was incredible – that’s the queen of sci-fi.
[This interview has been edited for length and clarity]