Cut to David

David’s story is beautifully layered from the start: An adopted, Chinese-American, transgender teen, raised in a Jewish home in Boston with a filmmaker for a mom, with a camera always close by. As David journeys from high school to college to adulthood, Sandy Jaffe’s camera documents her family’s evolving relationship as each participant has a turn steering the narrative. Blending vérité footage, home videos, and candid conversations, the film begins as an effort to understand David’s gender transition and expands into a deeper exploration of identity, agency, authorship, power, and the complicated yet loving bond between a mother and her son. An intimate, fly-on-the-wall documentary, CUT TO DAVID considers the possibilities—and perils—of living visibly and openly, exploring how ethnicity, gender, religion, and parenting shape who we become.

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