 tells the story of AJ and his family and showcases a stunning photographic record of his physical transition from female to male by Melbourne artist Alison Bennett.

Melbourne man AJ Kearns describes himself as just an ordinary father living in the suburbs with his two children. But there are many who would disagree.
Born into a conservative Pentecostal family in Sydney, AJ spent the ﬁrst 35 years of his life as a woman.


As a teenager Vicki-Anne thought she was gay and attended controversial church-based conversion therapy in the hope of becoming heterosexual.
After years of struggle AJ realised that he was a man and went on to create a family with his partner Zu White. But he then took the surprising step of postponing his physical transition to become pregnant.


Psychiatrist Dr Fintan Harte says it's the ﬁrst time in over 30 years of practice that he's encountered a 'trans-identiﬁed male' who has conceived a child.

From Daddy’s Tummy

Through beautiful and intimate camerawork, filmmaker Yana Ugrekhelidze illuminates the shadows where many LGBTQ+ people must still reside within their home countries, centering on Alexander, a transgender man forced to live clandestinely in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 

With no way to change the gender on his passport, Alexander is denied access to a proper job and even professional medical care. Despite such obstacles, his secret life is not one of solitude, living with his doting partner of nearly a decade, Marie—a cis woman—and surrounded by a warm, supportive family who have understood and protected him since childhood.

Winner of the Teddy Jury Award at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, Instructions for Survival is an exquisite and timely documentary portrait featuring outstanding filmmaking craft and a profoundly honest window into one couple’s struggle to live openly.


Alexander’s existence in the margins is untenable. With candour and empathy, Ugrekhelidze follows the couple as they consider seeking asylum in another country—a drastic step that might only be financed if Marie becomes a surrogate mother. In its quietly powerful and deeply humane way, Instructions for Survival captures both the heartbreak and profound joy of ordinary love in extraordinary circumstances.


Instructions for Survival

One trans man’s pioneering quest to fulﬁll an age-old desire: to start his own family. This is the story of the dad who gave birth. Freddy is 30 and yearns to start a family but for him this ordinary desire comes with unique challenges. He is a gay transgender man.


Deciding to carry his own baby took years of soul searching, but nothing could prepare him for the reality of pregnancy, as both a physical experience and one that challenges society's fundamental understanding of gender, parenthood and family. He quickly realises that what to him feels pragmatic, to others feels deeply confusing and confronting; this was not part of his plan.


Against a backdrop of increasing hostility towards trans people the world over, Freddy is forced to confront his own naivety, mine unknown depths of courage and lean on every friend and family member who will stand by him.
Made with unprecedented access and collaboration over three years, the ﬁlm follows Freddy from preparing to conceive right through to birth. It is an
intimate, audacious and lyrical story for the cinema about conception, pregnancy, birth and what makes us who we are.

Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth

An exclusive and intimate portrait following the first pregnant man, Thomas and his wife Nancy, into the delivery room as Thomas gives birth to their baby daughter Susan.

The Pregnant Man

In a small conservative mountain village in Jalisco, Alex has constructed his identity and defended his dreams: fatherhood, music, and being a man.


Victoria

"It takes a village to raise a child, but if you’re queer, it also takes a village to understand the process of creating one. Through sensitive and vital conversations, many from the perspective of those conceived by sperm donors, Johnson navigates relationships, sperm banks, multiple queer communities and the national health service itself, in an attempt to do family and reproduction differently." - Jay Bernard

Categories

Parenthood