‘Fights for our material survival’: documentary goes inside the battle for trans rights

In Heightened Scrutiny, the fight driving activist and lawyer Chase Strangio is backgrounded by a deep dive into how the media has helped to push an anti-trans agenda Trans documentarian Sam Feder’s latest feature Heightened Scrutiny is a kind of two-for-one – an affecting portrait of one of the most important trans activists of our time, and a continuation of the media critique he established through earlier films, particularly his groundbreaking 2020 Netflix doc Disclosure. It’s a powerful look at the fight over civil rights for trans people, while also posing as a critical rebuttal to supposedly center-left media such as the New York Times and the Atlantic, which have aided and abetted rightwing forces in setting off a moral panic against trans existence. The film follows the ACLU attorney Chase Strangio as he prepares for oral arguments in the supreme court case US v Skirmetti. These arguments occurred on 4 December 2024, with the court ruling several months later in favor of Ten...

‘I am all for strangeness’: Tilda Swinton on artistic integrity, acting and the afterlife

The Oscar-winning Scottish actor answers questions from Observer readers and famous fans including Pedro Almodóvar, Wes Anderson and Elton John

Tilda Swinton has been posing in different costumes for the Observer’s photographer and, as I arrive, has just changed into tartan trousers, saucy two-tone shoes and is standing perfectly still as a hairdresser attends to a blond quiff that makes her look like an incredible exotic bird – or a dandy hooligan, although her face looks too seraphic to mutate into aggro. What you see almost at once is that Swinton is giving 100% to the task at hand while being obligingly considerate to everyone around her. The mix of professionalism with warmth disarms, especially when you might have expected a superstar loftiness.

For Swinton is a superstar – ranked by the New York Times as one of the greatest actors of the 21st century. Original, distinctive and questing, she has played everything from a distraught mother in Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk about Kevin (2011) to the ancient, querulous Madame D in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and the White Witch in the Narnia series (2005-2010). She was in Almodóvar’s short The Human Voice (2020) and is about to star in his next full-length feature (details still under wraps). She is a chameleon yet always herself. She has won an Academy award, a Bafta, been nominated for three Golden Globes and, having just turned 63, is still seen as a fashion icon of androgynous beauty with an unchanging profile – like a figurehead on the prow of a ship. What a difference there must be, I’m thinking as I watch her in front of the camera, between her “real” life in the Scottish Highlands by the sea and all this London razzmatazz.

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