STARTING THE CONVERSATION

Immediately after the film, you may want to give people a few quiet moments to reflect on what they have seen. You could pose a general question (examples below) and give people some time to themselves to jot down or think about their answers before opening the discussion:

• What are the initial themes that rise to the surface for you after seeing North by Current?
• Was there a scene or a moment in the film that you found particularly moving or uncomfortable? What was it about that scene that moved you?
• Did you find any common ground between the people in your family and the people in the film? What was similar to or different from your own experience?
• If you were going to describe the film to someone, what might you say?
• If you could ask anyone in the film a single question, whom would you ask and what would you want to know?

Alternatively, you could ask participants to engage in the following activity:

Close your eyes. Inhale for a count of five. Hold for a count of seven. Exhale for a count of nine. Repeat three times.

After a few quiet moments, ask participants to reflect - with their eyes closed - on one image that comes to mind from the film. Ask them to consider what feelings this image evokes in their bodies. Offer them an opportunity to share with the person beside them or to share as a group.

Close this activity by inviting participants to read a selection of poems or quotes provided in the background information and reflect on how these selections connect to the film and their experiences of screening the film.

MEMORY, STORYTELLING & HOME

The child voice states, “Memory must be created against an abundance of information. But also against an absence, it has to be constructed. You assemble the fractures. Arrange the incidences to build a story.”

Throughout the film, we see archival family home videos across generations. The film includes current footage Minax is documenting. What role do you think documentation plays in the creation of memory, family lore, and storytelling?

After sharing the footage of his baptism into the Mormon faith and the revelation he experienced, Angelo states, “You start assessing the border between belief and truth. What you know and what you trust.” Later in the film the child voice states, “Humans create stories to explain things. To understand the world they occupy. You already know that. But when you lie to yourself long enough, you begin to believe a particular version of a story.”

Was there a point of view presented in the film that resonated most for you? Which one? Describe your impression of that point of view.

Throughout the film there is a tension between Angelo’s coming and going between his historic, rural hometown and his current city life. The child voice states, “When you leave a place the place goes on living without you. This is painfully obvious, yet humans manage to forget it over and over.” Later, Angelo recalls, “I am trying to remember why exactly I drug us through this.” The child voice responds, “Because you believed that the choices you’ve made render you unlovable. That the distance you enforced, would protect you from suffering.”

What role do you think distance plays in this film’s narrative structure? Consider both the time passed between Kalla’s death in 2013, and the film taking place between 2016-2020. Consider, also, the physical distance between Angelo and his family of origin.

Near the end of the film, Angelo shares another revelation, “I learned a secret. When you speak the pain’s name, it dissipates. When the pain’s great, you have to speak it over and over and over again. I want to go back in time and tell this secret to all our former selves.” The child narrator responds, “Tell it to all your future selves instead.”

In what ways do you agree or disagree that talking about, and telling the story of difficult histories, memories, and experiences is a path to transforming them? In your experience, what factors make speaking pain’s name so difficult?

RACE, CLASS & RURAL CARCERAL SYSTEMS

Grayling is the filmmaker’s home town, which provides the backdrop of a predominantly white, rural, poor/working-class small town in northern Michigan. The audience learns Angelo’s brother-in-law, David was accused of murdering his niece, with his sister implicated for child abuse and neglect. We see snippets of the family’s perspective on the criminal legal system’s incompetence and corruption. The case against David was ultimately dismissed and settled.

In what ways do you imagine the ripple effects of a multi-year legal battle, and David’s incarceration during the investigation, impacted the family as they navigated small town life while grieving the loss of Kalla?

Imagine if this same scenario had occurred with a trusted lawyer in the community being accused of the death of his girlfriend’s toddler. Do you think it would have played out in a similar way? What if a Black man was accused for the death of his girlfriend’s toddler? Do you think there would have been a similar outcome to David’s? Why or why not? What factors do you think insulated and protected Minax’s family? What factors do you think contributed to the criminal investigation after the hospital’s initial assessment was that Kalla’s death was a tragic accident?

How do you understand class and race as factors shaping Jesse and David’s experience with the criminal legal system?

GENDER & TRANSGENDER IDENTITIES

Both ideas around, and experiences of, gender, gender roles, gendered expectations, and heterosexuality are present throughout the film. This is highlighted through beliefs passed down through the Mormon faith, familial structures of Christian patriarchy, and socialization. Namely, the belief that it is the ultimate duty of all humans' to have children in order to provide bodies for awaiting souls is highlighted. The audience witnesses Jesse’s series of three pregnancies after Kalla’s death and Angelo’s self-reflection about his own value as a childless adult through this belief system.

In what ways do your own beliefs about reproduction, bodily autonomy, and gender overlap or diverge from those presented in the film?

Did this film allow you to critically reflect on personal belief systems and the impacts they may have on people you love?

While Jesse may conform to some notions of stereotypical gender roles, she stands in stark contrast to others. Angelo presents his sister Jesse as “the most impenetrable person I know,” and later wonders, “is stoicism only for men?”

What other ways do you see stereotypical gender roles confronted and challenged in the film? What about ways that you see traditional gender roles reinforced?

In his reflections on his interviews with David, Angelo notes, “In your world there is a tension between what it means to be a good man and what it means to be a real man.” And later, “I feel a deep sense of sorrow for this man. For the things that have happened. But also because he was never told that being a good man is the same thing as being a good person.”

Why do you think notions of being a good person are tied to how “well” a person conforms to stereotypical notions of masculinity or femininity? In what ways did this film help you challenge your own conceptions of masculinity and ‘goodness?’

In North by Current, the audience has the opportunity to enter the film exactly where Angelo’s family is in the process of understanding his transgender identity. It is not intended to generally educate the audience about transgender identities, but instead an opportunity to witness the way one family’s dynamics shift, change, and remain the same over time. His gender is central to his identity and fosters an imagined dialogue with his dead niece about loss and grief. Early on in the film, this conversation happens between Angelo and his parents:

“Do you want to hear about our other kid we lost?”

“We’ve lost two. A grandchild and a daughter.”

“We had a little girl named Angela. She was quite the character. And, uh, we never talked about it before but...she was quite the little sweetheart.”

“So, you would equate my transition with Kalla’s death?”

“Well, we’ve got memories of a little girl growing up.”

“I think it would be the same thing if you had a child and something happened to that child and they no longer were the same person. You would grieve, you know, who they were for the years that they were someone different. And once I realized I had to grieve that as a loss, then it helped with my acceptance a lot better…”

How do you think the generational divide between Angelo and his parents influenced this conversation? How do you imagine this conversation might sound with parents who are Angelo’s age (roughly late 30’s) having a similar conversation with their child today?

Throughout the film, Minax alludes to a question that’s been haunting him for years, but that he hasn’t been able to find the words to speak. Eventually, in 2020 he interviews his mother, asking her about an initial response she had to him beginning to take hormones. He recalls she was questioning if, “...me being trans was God punishing you for having had me.” He follows up with, “and I just want to ask you if you still feel that way?” After asking the question that has been replaying in his brain for years, he learns his mother doesn’t remember the exchange, but she is able to explain how her perspective has shifted, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.

Do you have instances with a formative memory between you and another person that has significantly shaped your life, but the other person does not recall? How have you bridged the gap between the two radically different recollections?

Near the end of the film, Fred tells the story of Pam speaking during a Mormon church service, talking about Jesse and Angelo, and shares that she said, “We all have things we have to adapt to. And the crux of her talk was, you have to love ‘em the way they are now. That’s the way it is. And if somebody doesn’t like it that my daughter is transgender or if the church doesn’t agree with it, I’ve got a big problem with that.”

What do you think contributed to Pam’s ability to speak out in support of her transgender child in her religious community? What do you think inhibited Pam from speaking directly to her child with the same commitment and support before he asked?

THE PERSPECTIVE OF CHILDREN

A powerful throughline of the film is the perspective of Jesse and David’s children Levi and Joey. The audience has the privilege of hearing how Levi and Joey are making sense of their world around them. Their play, commentary, and insights cut to the core of many of the themes presented in the film. We see Levi playing “jail” while his father is incarcerated. We hear a child witness their unconscious mother asking, “Is mommy dead?” We learn the way Levi’s grandmother Pam explains, in matter of fact terms, the death of the sister he never met. We absorb that Levi witnessed his father kick in his mother’s teeth. We experience Joey explaining the relationship between her parents and that “Daddy andonly like mommy don’t really like each other.” Aand that daddy only likes mommy “when she has lipstick on.” All of these shine a light on the acute awareness children have of their environments.

Were you surprised by the children’s ability to synthesize what they have observed? Why or why not?

The children are not sheltered from the realities of poverty, addiction, violence, and death. But there are protective factors in their lives, including loving care and the undeniable resilience within their family of origin.

Do you believe it is possible for moments of genuine connection, love, and care to permeate as much as the moments of suffering? In what ways can we foster connections strong enough to weather pain that is associated with being alive and being human?

What role do you imagine the creation of this film played in supporting the family’s connections to one another? How can art making contribute to the processing and integration of trauma into a familial story?

CLOSING QUESTIONS:

At the end of your discussion, to help people synthesize what they’ve experienced and move the focus from dialogue to action steps, you may want to choose one of these questions:

• What did you learn from this film that you wish everyone knew? What would change if everyone knew it?
• If you could require one person (or one group) to view this film, who would it be? What would you hope their main takeaway would be?
• Complete this sentence: I am inspired by this film (or discussion) to _________.

Closing Poem (To be read aloud as a group):

What I Didn’t Know Before

was how horses simply give birth to other

horses. Not a baby by any means, not

a creature of liminal spaces, but a four-legged

beast hellbent on walking, scrambling after

the mother. A horse gives way to another

horse and then suddenly there are two horses,

just like that. That’s how I loved you. You,

off the long train from Red Bank carrying

a coffee as big as your arm, a bag with two

computers swinging in it unwieldily at your

side. I remember we broke into laughter

when we saw each other. What was between

us wasn’t a fragile thing to be coddled, cooed

over. It came out fully formed, ready to run.

-Ada Limon, “What I didn’t Know Before”
The Carrying: Poems, p. 71

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