Kino Lorber will be releasing “Born to Be,” an absolutely fascinating doc I saw at last year’s New York Film Festival. This is poignant stuff, following the work of Dr. Ting, the head surgeon at Mt. Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, Director Tania Cypriano uses an extremely sensitive touch to her film, this is not the easiest watch, depicting the grueling process of sex-change operations.
Using the cinema verite genre to tell her story, Cypriano’s camera follows Dr. Ting making his daily rounds, and consulting patients as surgery nears for all of them. The operations themselves include feminization to vaginoplasty and phalloplasty. This is unique access to a community and the heroic doctors and support staff that conduct these surgeries — the result is a deep examination of uncharted and fascinating territory.
“Born to Be” is a film filled with interesting characters, scientific progress, and incredibly provocative questions. Kino Lorber will release “Born to Be” digitally on Nov 18