Really Happy Someday | UK Premiere to take place at BFI Flare as part of Official Selection
Spindle Films is delighted to announce that J Stevens’ Really Happy Someday will have its UK Premiere at BFI Flare on 22nd March, as part of the festival’s Official Selection.
Really Happy Someday is an award-winning story of community, identity and truly becoming yourself, without shying away from the real challenges of transitioning.
J Stevens’ (Sort Of, The Z-Suite) latest feature is an authentic portrait of the trans experience. Following its World Premiere at TIFF, Autostraddle remarked that it “pulses with the personal. It’s the latest in a series of exciting trans slice-of-life films that should have existed a decade ago…”.
Co-written by J Stevens and Breton Lalama, the duo drew from their own lived experiences to create the films powerful narrative. This was echoed by Stevens’ choice to film Really Happy Someday over the span of a year, early in Lalama’s transition, to showcase the realities of transitioning.
Before he transitioned, Z (Breton Lalama, The Madness, Slasher) was a rising musical theatre star struggling with his gender identity. One year into taking testosterone, he has finally started to feel at home in his body but has lost all control of his voice. At the same time, Z’s long-term partner, Danielle (Khadijah Roberts-Abdullah, The Last of Us), feels she’s lost the person she fell in love with. Unable to book work with his changing voice, Z starts bartending, where his new boss, Santi (Xavier Lopez, We Forgot to Break Up), emboldens him to fight for himself and his dreams. Z starts working with a singing instructor, Shelly, to learn how to use his new voice, and maybe even trust himself.
View clip here:
Music plays a vital role in the film, featuring musical classics from Les Misérables, Ordinary Days and an original score from T. Thomason & Joel Waddel. Showcasing incredible music from trans musicians Lane Webber, Ceréna, Mal Blum, Russel Louder, Blurry, Transstar, The Clicks, Pillow Fite and more.
Speaking on the musical influence, Director J Stevens, who was recently recognised by the Toronto Film Critics Association with the Visionary Director Award, said “I have always loved musicals. RENT was how I discovered I was queer, so it feels right that my first feature is a low key musical, but also not your typical musical at all. Choosing the musical songs we had in the film was a fun and nerve-wracking process. Nerve-wracking because there’s a scene in the film where Z listens to a pre-testosterone recording of himself singing. It was important for us that the recording really was Breton singing, so we had a limited pool of songs that he had old recordings of. Of the recordings I thought On My Own from Les Mis was the perfect song thematically for the film, it’s such an iconically female musical theatre song so to see Z try to sing it at the beginning of the film is jarring and that’s what we needed. I also knew trying to get that song was a huge swing!… Then in terms of Z’s dream song to sing, Breton and I both loved Ordinary Days by Adam Gwon and the song Favourite Places is about wanting to get to these beautiful places that you can never quite reach. It felt perfect thematically and when we reached out to Adam with why we thought it had to be that song, his thoughtful response secured it as the right choice in our minds. We have an incredible score by T. Thomason and Joel Waddell and then an amazing soundtrack featuring all gender-diverse musicians. That felt important to me that the film featured as much talent behind the scenes by gender-diverse artists as you were seeing in front of the camera. This film is a love letter to those talented artists and hopefully a springboard for more opportunities in their careers!”.
Authenticity and personal experience was key in process of making the film, co-writer and lead actor Breton Lalama shared “It was important to us to shoot the film over a period of time, so we could actually observe transition working on the body and voice… We left lots of space for capturing what might happen naturally- as I transitioned, as life happened around us as we shot. Something I most appreciate about working with J is that they make time for the world to inform the story and place more value on being present than on trying to force things to happen… Z’s journey mirrored mine in that we were both transitioning, and in that there was really no choice around the transition- it was start T or not continue on. I remember the moment where I really realized it- it was summer, and I was out of town shooting a TV show and I’d had a few days off and had not turned the lights on, had not got out of bed, couldn’t make myself shower because I couldn’t bear to physically interact with my body, which very much was not my body. Shortly after, I began the year-long process of proving my sanity to medical bodies so I might secure a legal testosterone prescription.”
Really Happy Someday was made with the support of Telefilm Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Really Happy Someday will have its UK Premiere at BFI Flare on 22nd March, with an encore screening on 23rd March