Movies Similar to Dawn: A Charleston Legend

Games You Can't Win(2016)

Games You Can’t Win explores “empathy” gaming, a new video game movement in which developers are sharing some of their most intimate or traumatic personal experiences through artful, documentary-style video games. Using a combination of intimate verité footage and video capture from the games, the short film tells the stories of three developer and the personal experiences that inspired their game.

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The Fabulous Ones(2022)

It often happens that at the moment of death, transgender individuals are shorn of their identity. Their families are ashamed, the funeral takes place in secret, and on the tomb appears the name the deceased had before their transition, in one stroke nullifying the entire life path they had chosen. The same thing happened to Antonia. Her girlfriends gather to honor her memory and give her back her identity denied. In telling her story, the film’s stars, all drawn from the variegated transgender world, interweave the narrative with tales of their own lives, experiences, and memories.

5.9

A Tight, Warm Hug(2024)

Lucy Rose, a transgender woman, shares her journey of self-love and empowerment since starting hormone replacement therapy three years ago. The film is part animation, part documentary and part VHS archive footage.

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Lily: A Transgender Story(2020)

Filmed over five years, we follow Lily Jones, 20, as she transitions from male to female, leaves her seaside home for the city, undergoes gender reassignment surgery and finds love.

2.3

Simply Girl(2019)

Denise, Hannah and Leticia are three ordinary women with extraordinary stories to tell. As transgender people, they talk about the challenges of finding their true identities within an intolerant and prejudiced society.

1.0

I Am(2014)

This beautiful and poignant film was commissioned by TENI (Transgender Equality Network Ireland) and is a conversational piece which explores gender identity and transgender experiences in Ireland.

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Julia(2013)

Julia is a young transgender woman who left her home country of Lithuania. Now living in Germany, she walks the streets of Berlin, working as a prostitute to survive. This documentary revisits Julia over a ten-year period of her life.

2.0

Pronouns in Bio(2023)

Through a collection of video diary entries spanning more than a year, Pronouns in Bio delivers an offbeat and charming reflection on transness and identity. Part documentary, part video essay and part musical, the film follows director and star Lucy Rose Shaftain-Fenner, a recently out transgender, autistic woman, as she navigates the first year of her transition. Note: Lucy uses the name Frankie during the film but has since started using the name Lucy.

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Trans(1983)

Trans is a 1982 Venezuelan documentary short film that offers an intimate look into the lives of a group of trans women and drag performers in Caracas, exploring their experiences in a society marked by transphobia and homophobia. Through interviews and performances, the documentary highlights the resilience and dignity of these women in the face of widespread discrimination and violence. Premiering at the Venezuelan National Cinematheque in 1982, Trans is considered a pioneering work in the representation of the trans community in Latin American cinema.

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Laerte-se(2017)

In this film, Laerte conjugates the body in the feminine, and scrutinizes concepts and prejudices. Not in search of an identity, but in search of un-identities. Laerte creates and sends creatures to face reality in the fictional world of comic strips as a vanguard of the self. And, on the streets, the one who becomes the fiction of a real character. Laerte, of all the bodies, and of none, complicates all binaries. In following Laerte, this documentary chooses to clothe the nudity beyond the skin we inhabit.

7.0

Logos(2025)

"After a period in intensive care, Britney sets out on a road trip where time becomes entangled. Along the journey, she seeks to understand her relationship with people, with affection, and with her own body."

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Sticks & Stones(2014)

Bambi Lake, a notorious San Francisco transgender performer and entertainer, takes us on a stroll down Polk Street, sharing anecdotes and the history behind her song Golden Age of Hustlers, which was written about her time as a street hustler in the mid-70’s.

1.0

Caught(2021)

In this innovative blend of documentary and fiction, Rosa and Paloma, two trans Latina sex workers in Queens, New York, fight transphobic violence, persecution from the police, and defend their cases of trafficking in an increasingly anti-migration political environment in the U.S.

1.0

The Transformation(1996)

Ricardo was once Sara, a homeless HIV positive transvestite, living in the underbelly of Manhattan. Today he is a churchgoing, married man, "saved" by a Dallas ministry. He has renounced his homosexuality, but is his conversion complete? Susana Aiken and Carlos Aparicio offer an intimate look at Ricardo's transformation.

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Naturally... A Woman(2024)

Through a careful selection of images and sounds extracted from various archives, the director of this short film offers a profound reflection on the process of discovering and blossoming her identity. In this personal journey, moments of stumbling, uncertainty and beauty are intertwined, revealing the complexity and richness of the search for authenticity and acceptance.

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See You Tomorrow

Musician, octogenarian and transgender activist Beverly Glenn-Copeland and his wife navigate the implications of the former’s dementia diagnosis, contemplating high stakes, complex decisions about care and wellbeing while they embark on a mission to preserve his artistic legacy.

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Playback(2019)

In Córdoba, far from the Argentine capital, the end of a military regime promises a spring that is all too brief. “La Delpi” is the only survivor of a group of friends who are transgender women and drag-queens, who began to die of aids in the late 80s. In a Catholic and conservative city, the Grupo Kalas made their weapons and trenches out of improvised dresses and lip-syncing. Today the images of unique and unknown footage are not only a farewell letter, but a manifesto to friendship.

5.1

My body is a cage(2025)

“Are you a man, or a woman?” In a world built on binaries, this is the question every trans soul must learn to answer—again and again. But imagine a future where bodies wither, yet minds ascend—consciousness can be uploaded to the cloud, and we could inhabit mechanised shells. In such a world, would gender still hold weight? Would it matter if you were man, woman, turtle or elephant?

0.0

Ludruk Dahulu, Kini, dan Nanti(2023)

Ludruk Tobong artists are trying to maintain the arts that support their livelihood and are also trying to eliminate the negative stigma of trans women through cultural media.

8.0

Casa Susanna(2022)

In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers. Diane and Kate are now 80 years old. At the time, they were men and part of this secret organization. Today, they relate this forgotten but essential chapter of the early days of trans-identity. It is a story full of noise and fury, rich in extraordinary characters, including the famous Susanna, who had the courage to create this refuge that came to be known as Casa Susanna.

8.0