Genre
Synopsis
CRANE COUNTRY follows Finley, a 30 year old Latine trans woman early in her medical transition, after she gets dumped by her know-it-all boyfriend, Ronnie. Soon after, she gets the news that her Christian, Trump-loving uncle, Rick has passed away. In order to attend the funeral, she hesitantly travels to Tampa, Florida, a state where anti-trans propaganda is running rampant under the leadership of their current Governor Ron DeSantis. When she arrives, she is greeted by her accepting, but with a knack for misgendering, mom, Jacklyn; and her uncle’s widow’s cousin, Ruffa, a Filipino trans elder, whom she clicks with immediately. As the week leading up the funeral goes by, more family start to fly in, including Finley’s brother, Matt, and two cousins, Ricky and Danny. They each have different, but similar, feelings about Rick’s death, that they, too, are trying to get a grasp on. Matt didn’t really know him, so he’s more there to support Jacklyn; Ricky, an asexual gay man, was always a mama’s boy and never felt truly accepted by his dad; while Danny, who was the closest to, but also let down by, Rick, struggles with his grief around the family he knows his dad hurt. Finley has a plethora of quirky experiences while in Florida, including hooking up with a gym bro who resembles MGK, discovering a mouse in the house, and seeing cranes in the wild for the first time. Ruffa enlightens Finley that cranes are some of the oldest living birds on Earth that have been here forever and are here to stay.
Bio
Ryan Rox (they/she) is a Director, Writer, and Actor of Trans Non-Binary experience, living and working in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Besides making films, Rox also works as the Artist Support Manager at the film organization Femme Frontera, supporting marginalized Femme and Non-Binary filmmakers of color from border regions, with an emphasis on those in Las Cruces, El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. In 2022, Rox received Femme Frontera's annual Filmmaker Grant, with which they used the in kind support to predominantly fund "Shipping Them" - a non-binary autobiographical fiction short film that received multiple film festival official selections and awards, including Best NM Short(2022 Albuquerque Mindfield Film Festival), Best El Paso Film(2023 El Paso Media Fest), and Best Locally Made Short(2023 Santa Fe Film Festival). Their primary filmmaking focus is telling queer stories from a queer perspective, while creating jobs for LGBTQIA+ individuals, bringing awareness to their humanity, and sparking empathy in those unfamiliar with and possibly misinformed about the community.
