Synopsis
In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.
The Sound of Identity captures Lucia Lucas on the cusp of international stardom, profiling the moment in an artist’s career when everything could fall apart or come together. Showcasing the collaborative process between Lucas and her mentor, prolific and renowned composer Tobias Picker, Mozart’s Don Giovanni comes to life as Lucas, a world-renowned baritone, takes the spotlight and all the pressures that come with it.
Taking place at the height of her career, Lucas provides fresh insights into her transition, the professional risk she is taking, and what it means for those who follow. Exploring the role that identity plays in our personal and professional lives, The Sound of Identity provides a nuanced look at voice and gender, in a documentary The Independent Critic calls “director James Kicklighter’s best film yet.”
Directed by James Kicklighter, The Sound of Identity is a production from the Emmy Award-winning team of Russ Kirkpatrick & Andy Kinslow (Boomtown: An American Journey, Unlikely Family), and is executive produced by Golden Globe®-winner and Academy Award®-nominated Josh Bachove (Minari, The Little Hours), with Jonathan Pope (The Social Dilemma) on as Director of Photography.
- Director
- James Kicklighter
- Producers
- Joshua Bachove, Andy Kinslow, Russ Kirkpatrick, Gato Scatena
- Cinematographer
- Jonathan Pope
- Editor
- James Kicklighter
- Composer
- Nicolas Repetto
Videos
Press
“Director James Kicklighter weaves three art forms—opera, filmmaking and interview—into a single viewing experience that made Lucia’s seemingly different life something I could relate to, and more surprisingly, opera something that I suddenly saw as relevant. ”
“The Sound of Identity is an enthralling and introspective glimpse into the life of a trans woman in the modern arts. Lucia Lucas' vividly inspiring story is translated perfectly to screen.”
“This is actually a good movie to show people who aren’t familiar with mounting a production because there is a lot of detail, but very little technical jargon. The movie is really about arts organizations and the environment in which they operate.”
“It’s about Lucas’s life, but isn’t really a biographical portrait. It’s a movie about art, principally what art can demand of those who make it, what art can tell us about life itself. The movie kind of upended my own expectations of what the movie was going to do by declining to offer a coming out story. ”
“Jeanne Veillette Bowerman talks with opera singer, Lucia Lucas, and The Sound of Identity's director, James Kicklighter. Lucia shares her experiences being the subject of a doc, the first transgender opera singer to take on a lead role, and a peek behind the curtain of the world of opera. Together with James, they explore all aspects of an artists life—realities not often discussed, like money, relationships, and film festival challenges for LGBTQ+ films.”
“I came to appreciate the film more than I had the first two times I had watched it. Because what I saw was an artist with a compassionate and intelligent vision that is both disciplined and inquisitive...the film bears the hallmarks of an instinctual and intuitive director. Kicklighter knows when to lean into elements that might seem superfluous and build on a contextual subterfuge that reinforces the film.”
“There is an intimacy here that allows Lucas’s story to resonate beyond the specifics of her experience. The film wisely centers Lucas, allowing her voice and presence to guide the narrative. It’s a moving portrait of an artist navigating identity, ambition, and legacy.”
“Lucas is captivating and commands the screen even when she's not singing.”
“I’ve interviewed many artists and watched countless films, but this one is...indescribable. It’s a profoundly important documentary—dare I say, the most life-altering film experience I’ve had in years. ”
“The Sound Of Identity is not only about how opera mingles with real life, how Lucas' creation becomes a personal manifesto...It is also a commentary on the boundaries and tasks of art. ”
“You see Lucia, Tobias, and the cast and crew of the opera as simply people, as the incredible artists that they are. That’s the point, and that’s how it should be.”
“The message of the film is bigger than Lucas: You can be trans and still live the life of your dreams. These things are not mutually exclusive. We still have a long way to go to reach full LGBTQ+ equality, especially for the trans community, but Lucas is an example of what's possible. ”
“A layered, up-close profile of a trans pioneer forging new pathways to acceptance within the rarified environment of an insular professional community where trans inclusion has been far from the norm.”
“Armed with a majestic baritone voice and passionate acting chops...The Sound Of Identity plays like a reminder to viewers everywhere: what an actor does on stage or screen has nothing do to with her real life.”
“Composer Nicolas Repetto, who composed the music for the film, said "James is one of the most hardworking young directors out there. He’s incredibly organized and radiates an extraordinary amount of energy about each project. He knows the subject matter and characters inside and out. I think that is the sign of a great filmmaker."”
“This documentary is effective for showcasing positive trans representation, but it is Lucas’ singing, not just her attitude, that really impresses.”
““I think one thing I am sensitive to as a director is the notion of putting people in places and boxes. I think because of the polarization of society we look at things as being blue or red or this is what a state may look like,” Kicklighter said. “Tulsa is different from some of its surrounding areas. The other thing is what it meant for representation, in that it’s a medium that we think as one being in the past, as dying. Someone like Lucia comes in and can reinvent that image.””
“James Kicklighter is a fantastic collaborator and friend. He has a very refined musical palette and specific way of using music in his films. He loves themes, motifs, and ideas that help bond the story together musically. ”
“The Sound of Identity reveals itself as the rare documentary which evolves as it goes, taking the audience on a journey of the soul, uncovered piece by piece, moment by moment, conversation by conversation.”
“James Kicklighter says, "This story, at its core, is about what it means to be an artist. I would be lying if I said I didn’t see myself in the story of Lucia, even if I’m not a transperson. I suspect many other artists will as well."”
“Shout! Studios secured all North American distribution rights for the documentary which includes theatrical, digital, VOD, broadcast, and home entertainment for cross-platform releases. Shout! Studios is set to this movie across all major entertainment platforms.”
“I knew Lucia always had to be interviewed on a stage. The stage gets bigger with every interview, representing the internal and external growth of her career. Once we left one stage, as with our development as artists, we would never return to that stage again.”
“This story would be a carnival side-show in lesser hands, but Kicklighter finds his way in by concentrating on the baritone voice and the process built around it.”
“As Kicklighter pointed out in our conversation, vocal tone, for better or for worse, is a defining aspect of gender. ”
“It was about a subject I normally wouldn't go out of my way to learn about. Casting a trans woman as Giovanni is only the tag-line, only the hook - because with this film, there's simply so much more. ”
“As a longtime fan of James Kicklighter's work, I've become accustomed to the quality independent motion pictures he creates seemingly regardless of type or genre. The Sound of Identity is, perhaps, the film that will, or at least should, make Kicklighter the household name he always should have been. ”
“It is our very humanity thrust into the spotlight, a stirringly potent orchestration that revolves around raw talent, emboldened, hard-won confidence, all deftly placed into our scope of vision through this 90-minute documentary effort from director/editor James Kicklighter.”
“Kicklighter used this ground-breaking story to shine a light on the incredible talent present in the industry and The Sound of Identity might help to bring attention to the art form. ”
“A new documentary from James Kicklighter, titled The Sound of Identity, follows her journey leading up to her barrier-breaking bow.”
“A lovingly crafted, intimate story following the creative process from beginning to end, The Sound of Identity is a hugely successful and modern addition to LGBT cinema.”
“The New York Times sent a reporter. The Metropolitan Opera sent a casting representative. Lucas had a documentary crew following her around. And her dad, whom she hadn’t seen for a decade, flew in specially for the occasion.”
“Principal filming on the documentary begins in April. The film will look into Ms. Lucas' life, and her love of opera, and will examine the affection the mid-sized modern American city of Tulsa - where Ms. Lucas will perform - has historically had for the arts. In the early 1900's, Tulsa had an Opera House before it had running water.”
Gallery
Director's Notes
I turned down this film three times.
When Russ Kirkpatrick and Andy Kinslow called me about directing a documentary on Lucia Lucas, the first transgender woman to perform a principal baritone role in a major professional opera, my first instinct was to say no. I was not sure I was the right person. I am a Southern kid from a town of 123 people in Bellville, Georgia. I grew up on country roads, not in opera houses. What did I know about this world, and more importantly, what right did I have to tell this story?
Russ and Andy were patient with me. They kept saying it was in my wheelhouse. I kept saying it was not. And then I got on the phone with Lucia.
That conversation is the reason the film exists.
Because once I talked to her, I realized the logline an audience would see on paper, the first trans opera singer to play Don Giovanni, was not actually the movie I wanted to make. That is a headline. Lucia is a person. The movie I wanted to make was about her heart, her artistry, her reconciliation with the child she used to be and the woman she has become. Being trans is part of the story, but it is not the whole story. It is not even the center of it. Her voice is the center. Her performance is the center. Her humanity is the center.
I pitched that vision to Russ and Andy. They said yes. And we went to Tulsa.
Here is the decision that shaped everything that followed. I knew from the beginning that Lucia always had to be interviewed on a stage. Every single interview. Three principal interviews, three stages, each one bigger than the last. The smallest stage for act one. A middle stage for act two. The biggest stage for act three. The physical space had to mirror her internal and external growth as an artist, and also something harder to name, the public stage of judgment that every otherized person is forced to stand upon whether they asked for it or not. Once we left a stage, we never returned to it. That rule mattered to me. Because as artists, and as people, we do not get to go backward.
I structured my questions the same way. Each interview corresponded to a different act of her life. I was not just gathering footage. I was asking her to walk forward with me, stage by stage, until we reached the one she had been working toward her whole career.
The thing I want you to know is that this film surprised me.
I thought I was making a movie about opera. I thought I was making a movie about identity. What I ended up making, I think, is a movie about the question every person eventually has to answer, which is: who do you want to become, and are you brave enough to actually become them? That question does not belong to any one community. It belongs to all of us. The magic of Lucia is that she answers it with her whole body, in real time, in front of an audience, in a 400 year old art form, in Tulsa, Oklahoma of all places.
There is a moment in the film where Tobias Picker, the Artistic Director of Tulsa Opera, sits with Lucia and talks about scars from his own childhood. They are playing video games when it happens. Two people, one trans and one not, revealing that every human being carries a transition inside them, whether anyone sees it or not. I love that scene more than almost anything else in the film. It is the thesis without ever announcing itself as the thesis. That is the kind of filmmaking I want to keep making. Restraint. Implication. The mundane made holy.
I am a documentary filmmaker, which means my job is to get out of the way. But I am also a Southern storyteller, which means I believe deeply in structure, in myth, in the slow reveal. This film is the marriage of those two instincts. It is the most personal movie I have made, even though it is not about me. Maybe because it is not about me.
I am proud of it. I am proud of Lucia. I am proud that Shout! Studios brought it to a wider audience, that STARZ and Prime Video gave it a permanent home, that The Independent Critic called it my best film to that point, and that it sits at 91% on Rotten Tomatoes. Those are nice things. But the thing I am most proud of is that Lucia trusted me with her story, and I think we honored it.
If you watch this film, I hope you leave it thinking about your own stage. The one you are standing on right now. And the next one you are working up the nerve to step onto.
That is the movie I made. Or really, the movie Lucia let me make with her.
Thank you for watching.
— James Kicklighter