Cary Cronenwett

Cary Cronenwett is an American transgender writer, director, and producer born in Oklahoma.

Early life and education Cary Cronenwett was born in Oklahoma but moved to San Francisco, California, where he lived for most of his adult life. Cronenwett graduated from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. After this, he went on to study Film and Video at the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated with a Masters of Fine Art (MFA). He currently resides in Los Angeles.

Career

Film

Phineas Slipped (2003)

Cronenwett's 2003 Phineas Slipped depicts a prep school classroom reading John Knowles's A Separate Peace and daydreaming about homosexuality.

Maggots and Men (2009) Maggots and Men premiered on 21 July 2009 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco as part of the LGBTQ Frameline33 Film Festival. In an interview with the San Francisco Film Society, Cronenwett said that he feels it is important to "contextualize LGBT struggles for equality within a larger social movement" which is what he strived to do in creating this film. When questioned about this Cronenwett said that although he had always planned to cast a large number of trans men in the film, his intent was not merely to make a film focusing on having "the most trans guys on film ever". The novel by Michelle Tea won the Lambda Literary award for Lesbian Fiction in 2000. Cronenwett was one of many directors to work on this film adaption, as it was produced by a "national community of queer filmmakers". In total 21 queer and lesbian directors worked on the film adaptation of Valencia, with such notable directors as Cheryl Dunye, Joey Soloway and Courtney Trouble. The film adaptation of the book was premiered at the 2008 Frameline Film Festival.

The film appeared to be extremely popular with audiences when it premiered at the Frameline Film Festival with lines "out the door". However, the film received mixed reviews from critics. Overall, on IMDb it scored 6.9/10. Initially the film was intended to be a transgender/queer produced short film as part of a feature called Kathy Goes to Haiti. However, whilst working on this project co-producer, Flo McGarrell, died in the earthquake that hit Haiti in 2010. Cronenwett then decided to merge what had already been shot for Kathy Goes to Haiti with archival footage of Flo's life to create an "intimate personal documentary with a hybrid structure". The hybrid documentary focuses upon Flo's work within the queer and trans community in Jacmel, Haiti and the impact that he had on individuals there. The documentary which was premiered in 2015 at the LGBTQ Frameline39 Film Festival in San Francisco was described as "beautiful and tragic".

Filmography

Awards and recognition In 2009, Cronenwett was awarded the 'Bay Area Guardian Goldie for Local Discovery' for his film Maggots and Men (2009).