Description: Real
Boy is the coming-of-age story of Bennett Wallace, a transgender
teenager on a journey to find his voice—as a musician, a friend, a
son, and a man. As he navigates the ups and downs of young adulthood,
Bennett works to gain the love and support of his mother, who has
deep misgivings about her child’s transition. Along the way, he
forges a powerful friendship with his idol, Joe Stevens, a celebrated
transgender musician with his own demons to fight.
Biography: Shaleece
Haas is a queer documentary
filmmaker and educator based in Oakland, CA. Most recently, she
produced and directed Real
Boy, the story of a
young songwriter whose gender transition forces those closest to him
to undergo their own profound transformations. Real
Boy is currently
screening at festivals around the world and will have a national
public television broadcast in 2017. Shaleece is the series producer
for The Genius of Caring,
a collection of interactive short films about family caregivers. The
project emerged out of the 2013 documentary The
Genius of Marian,
which she co-produced. The
Genius of Marian premiered
at the Tribeca Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ POV.
Shaleece’s first documentary, a short called Old
People Driving,
premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival and was broadcast on the
PBS Newshour as part of the Economist Film Project. Shalecca is
teaching video storytelling at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of
Journalism, the Berkeley Advanced Media Institute, and the NY Press
Association. She is a 2015 Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellow, a
2012 Working Films (Reel Aging) fellow, and a 2010 MetLife Foundation
Journalists in Aging fellow. Prior to working in documentary film,
she had a brief career as an editorial photographer and radio
producer.
