Traversing the gender binary: Exploring ‘new’ Scandinavian trans cinema

In 2002, Norwegian film-maker Even Benestad’s documentary Alt om min far/All About My Father (2002), featuring Benestad together with his transvestite father, premiered at several film festivals. The film soon won several awards, and was nominated for many more. It can be classified as a foundational piece within a Scandinavian context: it blazed the way for other more genuine, more serious, representations of transgender issues on film. Investigating the trans cinema that has come out of Scandinavia in the aftermath of Benestad’s film, this article relates this cinema to the New Queer Cinema and to recent social changes regarding political, medical and legal discourses and possibilities for transgender individuals. The films discussed include Alt om min far/All About My Father (Benestad, 2002); En soap/A soap (Christensen, 2006); Ångrarna/Regretters (Lindeen, 2010); Pojktanten/She Male Snails (Bergsmark, 2012); Ta av mig/Undress me (Lindgren, 2013); and Nånting måste gå sönder/Something Must Break (Bergsmark, 2014).