Our Joyful Endings follows the diary of a trans-masculine person who sees his own and others’ views of his body change during his transition. Between desire, apprehension and questioning. From there, comfort grows with people who share this experience.

Content notes: explicit sex, nudity, fisting

Our Joyful Endings was written in response to several observations about the body and desire in the lives of trans-masculine people.

During these journeys, which are sometimes accompanied by bodily changes, the body can be a vector of euphoria, an actor of pleasure, an object of desire, but also of rejection. There is a crying lack of erotic representations of trans-masculine bodies, particularly in gay erotic imagery. Experiences of rejection of trans-masculine people in gay communities are common, and we make the link between lack of representations, difficulties in projecting desire and rejection. Indeed, how can we desire a body that has never been thought of or seen?

In Our Joyful Endings, we were keen to show a diversity of trans-masculine bodies, with different journeys. In the common imagination, a trans body is one that has undergone surgery to conform to binary gender norms, but this is far from being the norm.

It also seems essential to us that there should be more representations of trans people in cinematographic works.

In addition to the on-screen representation of trans people, we also chose to set up a shoot with a chosen mix of trans-masculine and non-binary people. This enabled us to bring together people with shared experiences specifically on the issues raised by Our Joyful Endings. The film was also written based on real-life experiences.

To keep with the work of the film’s cinematographer, the choice of cinematography was based on experimental photography. Expired monochrome 35mm film, processed and digitised using traditional DIY techniques, gives to Our Joyful Endings a highly intimate visual dimension.