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INDIGO: Hello, hello, hello, we’re the Changing The Frame podcast. Welcome, welcome. This pilot episode is about us the co-hosts, and why we decided to start Changing The Frame. My name is Indigo and my pronouns are she and her. I am a Brazilian film curator and programmer based in Glasgow. And I have done loads of work around our community.

LEO: And I am Leo, my pronouns are he/they. I am a Basque journalist and filmmaker currently finishing up my Filmmaking and Media Arts masters, and really interested in film festival culture and community storytelling.

Changing the Frame aims to talk to trans and non-binary people in the film industries. We also aim to release one episode every month. And this is the first season of the podcast and we’re having lots of fun with it. So we hope to continue to develop and expand it further.

INDIGO: This podcast came to be because I was researching the trans new wave for my dissertation at university. And I was trying to find out how trans, non-binary folks are changing the ways films are made, and realized there weren’t many podcasts that talked about that. So we decided to create it together. But first, I’ll talk a little bit about how we met.

LEO: Yes, because you had the idea.

INDIGO: Yeah.

LEO: And you brought it to me.

INDIGO: Exactly. So we first met at SQIFF, so the Scottish Queer International Film Festival that I was programming some events for. And you wanted a ticket.

LEO: Yes because I got recommended to go watch a screening in my course.

INDIGO: So I gave you a free ticket.

LEO: Yes, very kindly.

INDIGO: Well I try, I try my best. And then we met next for a screening that I was in the Q&A for, for… What was the name of that film?

LEO: Sedimentos.

INDIGO: Sedimentos, here in Glasgow as well. And you were in the audience. And you were asking loads of questions. And I was like, “oh my God, that boy is asking so many questions”.

LEO: I was so nervous. I was asking the questions as well. I was shaking.

INDIGO: You were doing great. I was there trying to answer stuff. And I was like “oh, my God, I don’t know anything!”

LEO: You were doing fantastic.

INDIGO: Well, I hope so. And then we met…

LEO: We met at, actually spoke for the first time…

INDIGO: At the Trans…

LEO: Small Trans Dinner and Movie, which is something that the Small Trans Library in Glasgow hosts every week, where trans people are invited to have dinner and watch a movie together.

INDIGO: And it’s all free.

LEO: All definitely for free.

INDIGO: Yeah.

LEO: Very good vibes.

INDIGO: Yeah. So then I talked to you then, got your number and then we met up for coffee. And I talked about this idea. And you were up for it so…

LEO: And here I am still, so!

INDIGO: Yeah, after months!

LEO: After months!

INDIGO: Exactly. So this is us.

LEO: This is us!

INDIGO: This is how this podcast came to be. And now we’re thinking of doing a little speed round to talk about our favorite multimedia stuff. So, in terms of favorite book that you’ve read recently.

LEO: Yes.

INDIGO: What would you recommend?

LEO: Me? 

INDIGO: Yes.

LEO: Well, I read The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson, which is a very good memoir book. And it’s about the author herself, obviously. But it’s also heavily about her trans husband and how they’re both going through hormonal and bodily changes when he’s starting to take testosterone and she’s getting pregnant with their second baby. It’s a very good book, I think it’s very important how Maggie portrays motherhood in like ways beyond just cis-heterosexual normative ways. And I literally just recommended it to you, like 30 minutes ago. So we’ll see if Indigo reads that as well.

INDIGO: I’ll try. I picked Detransition, Baby, which I haven’t finished yet. I’ve been reading it for months. Yeah, so Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters. It’s just a book about these two trans feminine people who broke up as one of them detransitions and this person who destransitions. He got his boss pregnant and then he contacts back his ex, because he knew that she always wanted to have a kid. And he kind of makes this proposition of her also taking care of the baby with them. I’m still halfway through it. So I don’t know exactly what happens in the end, but I’ve been really enjoying it. And it’s nice to read some fiction about transness, bodies and stuff and how trans relationships work. So yeah, it’s really good.

LEO: Interesting that we will pick something on parenthood as well.

INDIGO: That is true, yeah!

LEO: I was listening to you and I was like, “oh, damn!”

INDIGO: Yeah, it’s all about parenthood.

LEO: Yeah.

INDIGO: Yeah, I need to have a kid soon.

LEO: Imperative.

INDIGO: Yeah.

LEO: We also picked something that we have both read, which is the Trans Kink Zine by Easter Road Press.

INDIGO: Yeah, I loved it, because you bought it and you gave it to me before you read it.

LEO: Yes.

INDIGO: So I read it first.

LEO: It’s so good.

INDIGO: It was amazing. Honestly, it’s just great. Reading like different poetry and seeing different visuals by trans people…

LEO: The images were fantastic.

INDIGO: …talking about trans bodies and kink, it was really nice.

LEO: Very very good… In terms of favourite films?

INDIGO: So right now I’ve been watching the series Only Murders In The Building, it’s not a film, but it’s a nice show. And in the second season, Selena Gomez’s character kind of gets with Cara Delevingne’s character, which is really nice. And I’ve been really enjoying it. It’s just a nice comedy-murder.

LEO: Murder Mystery situation!

INDIGO: Yeah, which is just really lovely.

LEO: Nice.

INDIGO: How about you?

LEO: I picked Raw by Julia Ducournau because it’s a cannibalistic horror film that also very much explores teenage girls and monstrosity. So this girl goes to university for the first time. And she gets hazed. But what happens is that she is a vegetarian, and she is studying biology or something like that or veterinary or something, something to do with like animals. And in the hazing she eats meat for the first time and that, like, brings something in her, some cannibalistic urge that also awakens her sexuality.

INDIGO: Interesting.

LEO: It’s a very, very good film I really recommend.

INDIGO: I need to watch it.

LEO: You really do, you really do. You should. You really should watch it.

INDIGO: Yeah. I’m gonna put it on my list. And in terms of a film that we’ve seen together, After Yang…

LEO: By Kogonada, yes.

INDIGO: …was a great film. I feel like you have more to talk about, it’s just stunning. And like the pacing is beautiful. So…

LEO: I could talk about this film forever, I could spend hours talking about it. Maybe I’ll start my own podcast that is just about After Yang.

INDIGO: Go on! Go on!

LEO: For anybody that doesn’t know it’s a very sweet film. A bit dystopian, but not in a very, like ridiculous way where… No, not dystopian, sci-fi! Sci-fi, sorry. And it talks a lot about cyborgs and how they function but not in a scary dystopian way, is what I was trying to say, it’s a more human, more humanistic look at what makes people human. And what could make cyborgs human as well. It talks a lot about identity, ethnicity and race. And it’s just very good. 

INDIGO: I love how they talk on memories as well.

LEO: There’s some fantastic conversations. Yeah, memory and what’s important to each person.

INDIGO: Memory is a big theme.

LEO: It’s a very good film.

INDIGO: And how robots collect their memory, which is such a very human thing.

LEO: Yeah, I would really recommend. It has Justin H Min from the Umbrella Academy on it for anybody that might know about that, but I really liked him. I really liked him on the film. He’s very good.

INDIGO: In terms of other multimedia stuff, my favourite music recently. I would say a Brazilian song made by this T4T couple

LEO: Nice!

INDIGO: They’re both artists, it’s a beautiful song. It’s called Um Rock, um Roubo, um Love Com Você. We will share all of this on our Instagram as well. So make sure to check those out.

LEO: What does the title mean? Will you translate for us?

INDIGO: “A rock, theft and love with you”?

LEO: Nice, nice.

INDIGO: Just like, I don’t know! I’m really bad at translating stuff really quick.

LEO: No, I think that’s good.

INDIGO: Yeah, it’s my Isis Broken and Aqualien. And Aqualien just had a baby. Well, basically, they had a baby and it’s just lovely to see him on Instagram talking about him in his parenthood. I feel like this whole episode is about parenthood!

LEO: It is starting to be!

INDIGO: Okay, now you talk about yours.

LEO: Well, I picked Mujerón by PtaZeta and Villano Antillano because I like both artists a lot. PtaZeta is Spanish and she is a rapper and she is very queer. Which is very important to me, because in the Spanish rap scene, everyone talking and singing about women is usually men and it’s not very, like, nice. But getting a queer woman on the scene is so good, and I’ve really been enjoying her music since. And Villano Antillano, I recently found about. She’s a trans Latin American woman, and she did a session with Bizarrap and I loved it so much and when and when they collabed Villano Antillano and PtaZeta, I lost my mind. The song is so good. It’s just like a really good party song to like, shake your bones to, and I really enjoy it. I think everybody should hear it.

INDIGO: I can agree.

LEO: Because I made you watch the video clip as well.

INDIGO: It was really good. And, Bizarrap?

LEO: Bizarrap, yeah. Yeah.

INDIGO: His session was really good with her as well.

LEO: It’s fantastic, so so good.

INDIGO: Which is amazing. And in terms of, like, something that we’ve listened together, I would say the Blue Water Road album.

LEO: Blue water! 

INDIGO: Blue water! The Blue Water Road album by Kehlani is just incredible. And I can’t wait to see them in December, because they’re coming to Glasgow. Yeah, it’s just so lovely and healing. And I love how they talk about like relationships as well. And this album is just really cute.

LEO: The song with Justin Bieber is very good as well.

INDIGO: Yeah. Which is surprising.

LEO: Yeah I know. That was shocking for me. That was very shocking, but I like it a lot.

INDIGO: I mean, I love Justin Bieber. But yeah some people have other opinions about him.

LEO: I mean, I don’t have bad opinions about him, I’m just indifferent. But that song with Kehlani is very, very good I have to say.

INDIGO: It’s a slay.

LEO: It’s a big slay.

INDIGO: It’s a big slay. And then favourite podcasts?

LEO: Yes.

INDIGO: Do you want to talk about yours first?

LEO: I shall. So I picked a fiction that I’ve been listening to recently. It’s called Mirrors and it’s about three women who are in different periods of time, but they’re all being haunted by the same thing. There’s a… one of the women is gay, and she’s married. And there’s just like many explorations into like feminism, because obviously one of the women’s in the past, one of the women is in the future, and power dynamics with the type of people they work with. It’s all told in recordings that they make, so like recording journal types kind of situation. And it transitions really nicely into a sci-fi podcast. It’s very good, I would really, really recommend. What about yours?

INDIGO: So my podcast that I’ve been listening to is called Dolly Parton’s America. And I just love Dolly Parton. And it talks about her influences in American culture. My flatmate recommended it to me and it was just incredible. It’s just nice to hear like stories and how she says the world and stuff. And there’s loads of interviews with Dolly Parton herself. And recently, I listened to this episode, where they talked about Jolene. And there’s this artist who created our fourth verse for the song in a very homoerotic way, in which Dolly ends up with Jolene. And I just thought it was really good. Yeah. And I’ve been obsessed with Dolly Parton. So Dolly Parton all the way!

LEO: Dolly Parton for the win!

INDIGO: Exactly! And in terms of podcasts that we will recommend.

LEO: Guess what?

INDIGO: Changing the frame!

LEO: There’s this new podcast coming to you!

INDIGO: We’re very excited about the podcast. We hope you all enjoy it.

LEO: Yes.

INDIGO: We have recorded a few episodes already. And we’re just so excited to talk to more trans and non-binary people in the film industries and, you know, get to know more people and talk about films.

LEO: It’s been so good so far. And I feel like all of the conversations we’ve had, I don’t know about you, but I personally have been thinking about them ever since we recorded them because they’ve been so enriching and so heavy with like intentionality and passion. So I’m very excited that we’re both here now and getting this started so that we can share it with the world.

INDIGO: Yeah!

LEO: It’s going so good.

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LEO: And to close this pilot episode, we would like to let you all know that we are on Instagram under the handle @changingtheframe.podcast. In our profile you can find out about when new episodes will be released, browse through our media recommendations and can even get in touch, to let us know what you think or redirect our attention to other trans and non-binary creatives in the film industry that we could interview! We would love to hear from you!

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