For the first episode in our new series exploring how gender impacts and influences our lives, Edinburgh-based director Hope Dickson Leach brings to life the nuanced dialogue between a person’s past and present self.

Dickson worked together with Jason Barker, a filmmaker currently developing a documentary feature about gender and parenthood with The Wellcome Trust, and actor-writer Ellie Kendrick, known for her parts in Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning fantasy series Game of Thrones and 1960s drama An Education, to adapt elements of the short play Silly Girl, written and performed at the Royal Court Theatre by Kendrick in collaboration with Barker. 

The story sees a 40-something trans man recalling and reliving his first romantic entanglement—a universal experience that deepens in complexity when we view it through the lens of his gender history.