A Black Trans Soul Singer From the ’60s Is Honored in ‘Any Other Way,’ Executive Produced by Elliot Page – Watch the Trailer

June 19, 2024

Now in its 48th year, San Francisco’s Frameline Film Festival is once again celebrating LGBTQ stories and voices. Kicking off with a free Juneteenth block party of films and music, the festival will also screen “Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story,” the third annual Out in the Silence Award winner, on June 23 at the iconic Palace of Fine Arts. Directed by Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, and featuring executive producers including Elliot Page, “Any Other Way” is a documentary portrait of ’60s Black trans soul singer Jackie Shane, and has so far been celebrated on the festival circuit with appearances at Hot Docs and SXSW. In celebration of Pride Month And Juneteenth, IndieWire shares the exclusive trailer for the documentary below.

Why did R&B singer Jackie Shane, who died in 2019, disappear from the spotlight after wowing audiences in the 1960s? Mabbott and Rosenberg-Lee explore this question through never-before-heard phone conversations and rotoscoped animated reenactments in which Sandra Caldwell plays Jackie in later life, while Makayla Couture plays Jackie’s younger self. Plus, the soundtrack is by Jackie herself, who eventually found posthumous recognition among queer historians and now gets her first documentary portrait.

More from IndieWire

The Out in the Silence Award is given by Frameline to “an outstanding film project that highlights courageous acts of LGBTQ+ visibility in places where such acts are not common,” according to the festival’s website. Last year’s award went to Babatunde Apalowo, the director of the Nigerian gay romance “All the Colors of the World Are Between Black and White.”

Additionally, the Grammy Museum will host the Los Angeles premiere of “Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story” on July 17 in the 200-seat Clive Davis Theater at LA LIVE Downtown as part of the Museum’s Reel to Reel program. Filmmaker Michael Mabbott will then discuss the creative process behind the film in a panel discussion, and a tribute performance featuring one of Shane’s Grammy-nominated songs will follow later that evening. Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 22 at 12 p.m. PT. For more information, visit the Clive Davis Theater’s official Grammy website here.