"Tell her that I'm happy. Tell her that I'm gay. Tell her I wouldn't have it — any other way,” sings soul artist Jackie Shane on a 1967 live recording from the Sapphire Tavern.
That lyric captures the essence of a groundbreaking artist whose story is told in the new documentary, “Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story.” The film, which recently premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW), has its Colorado debut at the CinemaQ Film Festival this August.
Shane was a Black transgender soul singer who electrified 1960s Toronto before disappearing from the public eye.
The documentary, co-directed by Michael Mabbott and Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, uses a wealth of archival audio recordings and interviews to paint a vivid portrait of Shane's artistry, resilience and unwavering commitment to authenticity.
"It was one of the most remarkable pieces of music I've ever heard,” Mabbott said of his first encounter with Shane's music. “It's a live album, and it just felt like she was talking to me."
Though she died before filming began, the film is told in Shane’s own voice, using recordings of phone conversations she and Mabbott had over the last year of her life.
“When she passed away and we had these beautiful recordings … it actually opened up opportunities,” said Mabott. “It's still her voice, but it opened up opportunities that didn't exist when she was still here. And so when we pivoted from going to shoot Jackie on film, which was the goal and the dream at that time, the pivot was bringing in two incredibly talented black trans performers.”
Sandra Caldwell and Makayla Couture play Shane at different points in her life in the film. The filmmakers utilized a striking visual style, employing rotoscope animation to bring Shane's electrifying stage presence to life and to allow Couture to convey the essence of her performances. Caldwell steps in to portray the reclusive older woman from the phone recordings.
"There's only one piece of footage of Jackie performing live, and yet there's all of these extraordinary live audio of her," Mabbott
Mabbott’s co-director, Lucah Rosenberg-Lee, brought his unique perspective as a Black transgender filmmaker to Shane's story. He emphasized the importance of representation in storytelling: “Part of what this film is about really is what is erasure, what is the erasure of trans narrative and how all the trans people that have lived before and all the incredible things that they've done, and we don't get to know them as well,” Rosenberg-Lee said.
Born in 1940, Shane rose to popularity in Toronto's thriving music scene in the 1960s. Her powerful voice and mesmerizing stage presence made her a local phenomenon, but as a Black transgender woman in a time of intense discrimination, Shane faced significant hurdles. As her fame increased, so did the pressure to abandon her identity. In 1971, just as she was on the edge of stardom, she vanished from the spotlight, remaining in relative obscurity until her death in 2019.
“It's brave, brave, brave to me, in so many ways … to be yourself,” Rosenberg-Lee emphasized. “It’s this, I’m going to be out here as myself to the amount that she could.”
The filmmakers were committed to presenting a balanced and multifaceted portrait of Shane, one that honored the joy she found in life despite the hardships she encountered, and avoided, as Rosenberg-Lee put it, “that classic trans story of pain and suffering."
“There's enough pain in the film for people to understand that her life wasn't all roses, but there's also enough joy to understand that she chose the parts that are, she chose to tell us also the parts that are exciting. She wanted them highlighted. She didn't want it to be all sad. And Michael and I were in full agreeance on that from the beginning,” said Rosenberg-Lee.
Mabbott added, “Jackie was hilarious. Jackie laughed so much. She had an incredible sense of humor. The people that might've done her harm or the people that didn't accept her, she laughed at these people. These people were fools. These people were scared to be themselves, and that's why they were doing this.”
Shane's story is not just a personal narrative but also a significant chapter in LGBTQ+ and music history. As the directors note, her bravery in living authentically during a time of intense discrimination paved the way for future generations of transgender artists and performers. Their documentary serves as both a celebration of her contributions and a reminder of the ongoing struggles faced by the LGBTQ+ community.
The premiere screenings at SXSW were met with both laughter and tears, a testament to the film's ability to capture the complexities of Shane's story and the enduring power of her legacy. As Mabbott summarized, "Jackie's main message is live and let live. Do what you want, just know what you're doing."
“Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story” will screen as part of CinemaQ’s “pay what you can” program, which allows attendees to choose their ticket price for certain films. Sie Film Center artistic director and CinemaQ founder Keith Garcia said that was a deliberate choice, to ensure that cost is not a barrier to access.
“As we're trying to really expand that portion out to the community, our sliding scale angle of ticketing on some of these films is really just kind of creating that opportunity for folks to be like, 'I definitely want to make it, but if your funds are a little bit more restricted, we don't want to turn anyone away,'” said Garcia.
This year marks the 16th anniversary of the Cinema Q film festival, making it, in Garcia’s words, "a great jumping off point to, I think, an even brighter future." Garcia added this year’s festival focuses on “a great variety of all the colors and flavors of the queer community."
Ultimately, “Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story” serves as both a tribute to a forgotten icon and a call to action, encouraging viewers to embrace individuality, challenge societal norms and celebrate the power of authenticity.
"I want this to inspire anybody universally to do whatever they want to do under their own conditions," Mabbott declared.
“I would love for LGBT people, Black people — but also people who don't fit into those categories either — (to) see it and they feel related to the story,” Rosenberg-Lee added, “that it changes their minds potentially about how they've thought about gender in the past or how they think about their own lives and their own gender or sexualities.”
The CinemaQ screening of Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story is Saturday, Aug. 10, at 1 p.m. at the Sie Center in Denver.
