It is imperative for us that we have diversity in front of and behind the camera. The writer of FRAUD is a trans woman. The director is a nonbinary person. Our producing team is all women. Diverse storytelling must include diverse hires all around, and that's what we strive for.

*FRAUD is fiscally sponsored by The Film Collaborative, a 501(c)3 organization. ALL donations are tax deductible.

 

PLEASE NOTE: WE MUST HIT OUR STRETCH GOAL OF 35K TO STAY ON OUR SHOOT SCHEDULE.

 

THE THEMES AND STORY

If Rue from Euphoria grew up to be a rock singer who joins a Mr. Robot style crime ring, you'd have FRAUD.

 

FRAUD's central question is, are our identities something we get to create, or are they something we are born into? We explore this by flipping the ‘trans deception’ trope on its head. The ‘trans deception’ trope epitomized by films such as The Crying Game posits that trans people are imposters who are fooling people about our gender for material or sexual gain. In FRAUD, everything about Shira's identity is in question except for her womanhood. Furthermore, the deception about her identity is being used as a tool to fund her gender affirmation.

Shira is riddled with trauma from horrific bullying as a child and being raised by an alcoholic father. She convinces herself that she deserves to take a little back from a world that’s taken her peace of mind. She believes this surgery will give her authenticity. The truth is, she has absolutely no idea what ‘authenticity’ means. She’s desperate to be reflected by someone.

The film opens by launching the audience right into a 'credit card theft 101' montage. This serves not only as exposition, but also to explore Shira's character, the transactional nature of her relationships, the fear she has around men, the discomfort she has in her body, and the violence she has experienced due to her transness. We settle into the meat of the story when Shira meets Andre after her rock show.

At first, she thinks he's a perfect target. He's cute. He seems unsuspecting. But then something unexpected happens... she feels safe with him. She discloses that she's trans, it's nothing to him. She has a flicker of doubt that she can steal from Andre, yet her resolve wins out. But when Andre catches her in the act, it's revealed that their meeting was no accident. He'd been tracking her for weeks online. He needs a new recruit for his identity theft ring and he believes Shira is the perfect candidate.

Andre, as it turns out, grew up in Marseille. Being the child of an abusive father and a distant mother, he quickly found comfort in the arms of the Russian mob that ruled the French Riviera. Noticing his talent for being a fraudster, they quickly hired him and moved him around from city to city till he ended up in New York.

 

Andre constantly searches for a sense of security and a sense of home. However, he is also plagued by the insatiable need to one up his father to show him that he’s good enough to make a life on his own. When he meets Shira, he sees himself reflected in her and he immediately falls hard. Their mutual drive to prove something to their parents drives them to crime and to each other. 

The pair enter into a dangerous dance of romance, seduction, criminality, and business over the course of one night. Shira and Andre are two broken shards of glass that somehow fit together. He is the first one who sees her darkness as well as her light and likes it all. Will Shira join him? You'll have to see the film to find out.

A NOTE FROM THE CREATOR

As a sober, trans, Jewish artist, I am constantly seeking out new and innovative ways to explore how we build our identities and how multiple identities can intersect in one lived experience. FRAUD provides exactly this opportunity.

 

In 2019, trans stories are at a premium, but the effort put into developing trans artists is not commensurate with the interest in our stories. Too often, our narratives are being written through an outsider’s gaze. These outsiders often can’t imagine a trans character navigating a story that’s not centered on our transness.

The greater issue at hand is that when trans narratives are focused on the stories that are entirely unique to our experience, such as transitioning or coming out, it inherently places that trans character in an objectifying lens in which they are more a tool to educate cis folks about ‘what it’s like to be trans’ than a lived in character. I was interested in centering a trans character dealing with more universal experiences, thus placing the character within a more relational perspective for the audience.

The script was inspired by an actual day I had during my days of active drug and alcohol addiction. In addition to the main character’s transness, many of the other issues in Shira’s life are pulled from my own autobiography; financial distress, familial co-dependence, substance abuse, and historical trauma.

 

These issues are rampant within the TGNC community and yet they haven’t been significantly addressed in entertainment. And yet these are probably more relatable struggles to an inherently majority cisgender audience. With debates about the validity of trans people’s existence, the time is ripe to expand people’s notions of who we are and move past this didactic ‘trans 101’ version of representation. The truth is, we have messy and complicated lives that stretch well beyond our trans identities.

 

To me, true parity is when we can have a showcase a trans lead who is grey, messy, complicated, and unafraid of the dark. It’s an opportunity that cis, straight, white, male characters are afforded without question. It’s time to let us trans girls show you just how messy we can be too.

A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR

What is the single most powerful force in human history? Something that entangles, causes destruction, and creates life itself? Love.

 

In FRAUD, we see love as life and self-destruction through the lens of a character we don’t often see in today's media landscape; an outwardly broken trans person who crosses moral lines to meet her own needs. But the most fascinating moment for me is when she lets Andre see her for who she is. Marginalized people of all backgrounds are forced to keep people at a distance, because the fear of being seen can be overwhelming. This gendered world creates self-hatred, so to evolve out of that requires forces like love. Only trans people know this story. Because only trans people know what it's like to fight to be seen in a world that invalidates our identities.

 

This film includes elements of trans identity, but at its core it’s simply about a broken human who desperately wants to be seen. A love story. I think sometimes our identities can be fetishized, pigeonholed, and forced into roles that exist only to educate. Here, this isn’t happening. It shows that trans stories are so much bigger and louder than stories about transitions or coming outs.

 

While we find characters who can blend seamlessly into different identities interesting, FRAUD allows us, for a brief moment, to see how hard that actually is. It allows us to see the emotional and physical toil of living a life at the intersections of being. The film will start with the spark before the forest fire as we watch Shira's descent into a world of chaos.

 

I’m interested in countering this chaos with long takes in the style of Kenji Mizoguchi. The elegant and fluid movement we can get from the  steadicam will allow us to sit on the actor and appreciate the grittiness of the production design of the film. By the end, you’ll feel like you’ve been holding your breath the entire time. To achieve that for our audience, pacing and movement will be a constant. For me this will be the most methodically and challenging piece of work I’ve had to date and the most important. These stories have to be told visually with the care that they were written with. 

MOOD BOARDS

 

In accordance with IRS regulations The Film Collaborative (TFC) issues tax receipts for all donations of $250 and over, however all donations are tax deductible. SEED&SPARK admin fees and credit card processing fees are deducted before TFC receives the funds. TFC issues tax receipts on the amount they receive minus the fair market value of incentives offered.