Watch Now $12 A portion of rental proceeds will benefit The Brattle
This title is no longer available to watch in our Virtual Screening Room
Live Virtual Q&A DATE at TIMEpm (EST)
Join PERSON, PERSON, and the cast of TITLE for a LIVE virtual Q&A event on DATE! The link below can be used to set a reminder on YouTube or join the live event at the scheduled time. We recommend setting a reminder so you don’t miss out!
A 7-foot-tall fundamentalist Baptist minister, Markie Wenzel made the decision at age 46 to come out as a transgender woman and start living as female. It was a decision that ended her 20-year marriage and estranged her from her three children. It also saw her dismissed from her church and exiled to the margins of her community.
We meet Markie in 2008 as she is putting the pieces of her life back together, employed as a TSA agent and working toward her goal of sexual reassignment surgery. But over the course of the following decade, Markie begins to question her path. She misses the births of her grandchildren, struggles to present as feminine, and starts to re-evaluate her faith. On the eve of her gender reassignment surgery, she must decide for good whether to abandon her female identity and return to living as Mark, for whom life seemed so much easier.
With over a decade of vérité footage and contemporaneous interviews, filmmaker Matt Kliegman approaches the film with a Diane Arbus-like observational style that is at once intimate and voyeuristic, tragic and hopeful. Markie’s aim is simple: to be a good person, and lead a simple devout life. But her struggles are emblematic of a larger conversation rooted in our country’s fixation on identity – political, spiritual and personal – and the fear of those who don’t fit neatly within their own communities. When those around you won’t accept you for who you are, how can you accept yourself?
“Immersive, surprising and heartbreaking. Impresses with its artfulness and insight as it captures the tormented soul of its subject.”
— Peter Keough, The Boston Globe
“Remarkable in its frank discussion of an important matter, MARKIE IN MILWAUKEE is also extraordinary for its seemingly unfettered access to its protagonist, who appears all in for this intimate dissection of their process, even if they are not always sure what that process means. Who is Markie? A human being, in all their marvelous complexity.”
– Hammer to Nail
“This intimate slice-of-life doubles as a haunting meditation on the meaning of “identity” to someone who has long felt discouraged from expressing every part of who she is.”
– Noel Murray, Los Angeles Times
Virtual Screening Room: Markie in Milwaukee
AREA PREMIERE!
OPENS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11
Streaming Link Available Friday 12/11 at 10:30am
Proceeds benefit The Brattle
Pre-order Now $PRICE
Proceeds benefit The Brattle
Watch Now $12
A portion of rental proceeds will benefit The Brattle
This title is no longer available to watch in our Virtual Screening Room
Virtual Programs FAQ
2019 • dir Matt Kliegman w/Markie Wenzel • 92 min
A 7-foot-tall fundamentalist Baptist minister, Markie Wenzel made the decision at age 46 to come out as a transgender woman and start living as female. It was a decision that ended her 20-year marriage and estranged her from her three children. It also saw her dismissed from her church and exiled to the margins of her community.
We meet Markie in 2008 as she is putting the pieces of her life back together, employed as a TSA agent and working toward her goal of sexual reassignment surgery. But over the course of the following decade, Markie begins to question her path. She misses the births of her grandchildren, struggles to present as feminine, and starts to re-evaluate her faith. On the eve of her gender reassignment surgery, she must decide for good whether to abandon her female identity and return to living as Mark, for whom life seemed so much easier.
With over a decade of vérité footage and contemporaneous interviews, filmmaker Matt Kliegman approaches the film with a Diane Arbus-like observational style that is at once intimate and voyeuristic, tragic and hopeful. Markie’s aim is simple: to be a good person, and lead a simple devout life. But her struggles are emblematic of a larger conversation rooted in our country’s fixation on identity – political, spiritual and personal – and the fear of those who don’t fit neatly within their own communities. When those around you won’t accept you for who you are, how can you accept yourself?