Short film shot locally receives Grand Jury Prize at Outfest
Here’s a film capture of a scene from In France Michelle is a Man’s Name. The film, shot in Tygh Valley, The Dalles and Goldendale, recently earned the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest and will be entered in the Academy Awards for Best Live Action Short Film.
Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival selected the short film, IN FRANCE MICHELLE IS A MAN'S NAME, as part of its 2020 festival, which concluded on Sunday, Aug. 31. Today I’m thrilled to share that the U.S. Narrative Shorts jury fell in love with the film and has awarded it with the Grand Jury Prize, said Chris Crab of Weinstein PR in The Dalles.
Last year, Em Weinstein, child to Lee Weinstein of Weinstein PR, came back to Wasco County to shoot a short film in Dufur, City Park in downtown The Dalles and Goldendale.
“It was quite an adventure, and all the communities really stepped up to help (and Cousin’s)!,” said Lee Weinstein. “There are some pretty funny stories to tell along the way - thank goodness for the owner of the garage in Tygh Valley who at the last minute rented us his 1960 F-100 pickup truck he still had from high school.”
“There were a bunch of people who helped on the shoot from Oregon, and then about 20 people from the Big Apple,” he said. The film debuted at Outfest in Los Angeles on Aug. 27, the preeminent and most widely-recognized LGBTQ film festival in the world.
In addition to the Grand Jury Prize, this honor officially designates the film as an Academy Award-qualifying title for the category of Best Live Action Short Film.
The 12-minute film, directed by Yale School of Drama graduate Em Weinstein, is about Michael, a young Latinx trans man who returns home to the rural American West after years of estrangement from his parents. It explores trans identity, masculinity, and the price one is willing to pay for acceptance.
It was shot in September 2019 in The Dalles, Tygh Valley and Dufur, Oregon; Goldendale, Washington; and at Mary’s Club, the oldest strip club in Portland, Oregon.
Weinstein is a writer and director from New York City and The Dalles, Oregon. Michael is played by Ari Damasco, an actor and consultant from Aguascalientes, Mexico and Southern California, who now lives in Chicago. The two met in 2009 at Smith College and have been close friends and collaborators ever since. Weinstein and Damasco both live on the AFAB (assigned female at birth) trans-masculine spectrum.
Em Weinstein
