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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s 1941, in the rural South, and in the local hospital a farming couple is told their newborn baby is intersex, meaning it has the reproductive organs \u2013 and will display specific traits \u2013 of both sexes.<\/p>\n
In reality, approximately 1.7 percent of children are born intersex.<\/p>\n
In Mistake, premiering Friday (March 5) at the Gasparilla Film Festival in Tampa, the Bensons are told they must \u201cchoose\u201d whether their child is a boy or girl. At the father\u2019s insistence, the baby is a \u201che,\u201d to be raised as a boy named Lawrence.<\/p>\n
Through a combination of testosterone therapy and a hard-labor life working on the family tobacco farm, \u201cLarry\u201d grows into a strong, hearty young man.<\/p>\n
That is, except for the violent headaches and the fits of unbridled rage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Honey Lauren<\/p>\n
\u201cThis film speaks to a universal theme, which is identity,\u201d declares writer and director Honey Lauren. \u201cAnd alienation. And love. It definitely goes beyond a gender issue, though it is. And I don\u2019t know the answer, frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winner of \u201cMost Inspirational Film\u201d at the recent Sedona Film Festival, Mistake is the first feature film for Lauren, an actress and director whose short documentary films, Wives of the Sky and Happy Hands, received critical acclaim. She even plays a role, as Larry\u2019s sympathetic Aunt Peg.<\/p>\n
The script, she says, was written 11 years ago. The seed for the story goes way, way back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had something that\u2019s now being called gender dysphoria,\u201d she tells the Catalyst. \u201cFrom ages 0 to 7 I really thought I was male; I had very, very wonderful parents who let me live my life. And from about 7 to 8, I named myself Lawrence and assumed a boy role. Lived as a boy, cut my hair off and only wore boy clothes. That\u2019s what was my reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I look back, as a woman, I look back to that time, many years before people were talking about this and doing this and wondering what it was, and I just thought it felt like yesterday, this identity of Lawrence. So I thought I\u2019d write about it. In a lot of ways, that part of me is never going away. I look back and go wow, that was wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Mistake, adult Larry (played by Dominic Bogart) is unraveling, even as he falls in love with Lily (Jiji Hise), his sweet, mentally challenged neighbor. They live in a small-minded community, where \u201cdifferences\u201d are not only frowned upon, they are picked at like scabs.<\/p>\n
Larry retaliates with his fists.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did feel a sense of violence, being a girl trying to pass as a boy,\u201d Lauren reveals. \u201cThat was one of the things, maybe, that stopped me from continuing, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I have no regrets about who I am today and what, in terms of my identity. What I did then wasn\u2019t anything I could have controlled. It wasn\u2019t a tomboy thing, it was like a soul thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Part of what Mistake work is the performance by Bogart, whose previous independent, festival films include I Am Not a Hipster and Extracted.<\/p>\n
During the audition process, \u201cI had a lot of really good guys who came in, who did a rabid dog-mean testosterone-drive, really intensely-fueled \u2026 but then they couldn\u2019t come to the other side,\u201d Lauren says. \u201cAnd then I had the people who could get to the other side but couldn\u2019t bring in the rage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know that he could for sure until I started watching some of his work \u2026 and I went \u2018OK, he can get there. I know he can. With all my heart and soul.\u2019 And he really did, so well, that testosterone push, that really uncomfortable in your own skin rage. He was scary when he was scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although gender, identity and specificity are important hot-button-issues, there haven\u2019t been a lot of film or television dramas dealing with intersex people, specially.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis movie, I believe, talks about it without preaching,\u201d Laurens explains. \u201cAnd I\u2019m glad about that, because no one wants to be preached to. Nobody will hear. Or listen.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m hoping, the way this is presented, that people can hear it and it can bring some kind of compassionate view to this very misunderstood subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mistake screens at 6:45 p.m. Friday, March 5 at the AMC Westshore Theatre, 210 Westshore Plaza. Honey Lauren will be in attendance. Find more information and tickets at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n