Little Girl

Sasha is seven. She has always known herself as a girl. Her family accepted it; her mother, father and siblings call her a girl at home and let her wear what she wants. The trouble is outside the house. The school does not accept it; the records list her as a boy, she is put in the boys' group at ballet, and the teachers do not use her name. Her mother deals with the institutions: writing petitions, gathering medical reports, going to meetings. The documentary follows a year and takes place mostly at home. Sébastien Lifshitz directs. It is a French production. There is no expert opinion and no narrating voice; the camera stands with the family and does not comment. The mother is the axis; her guilt and her struggle with the institutions are shown directly. The film was shown at the Berlin Film Festival. The matter it treats is the slowness of institutions; the conflict is not inside the family but between the family and the school. Sasha pays no attention to the camera and plays in most scenes; the documentary does not treat the child as a case. Its limit is scope; the narrative looks at one family and does not enter the wider argument. Another limit is distance; the documentary stands openly on the family's side. Who it is for: viewers who like observational documentary and family portraits. Who it is not for: it is slow, rests on a single instance, and some scenes are upsetting.