It’s the most difficult “exercise” in the world: Being truly yourself without caring about what society will think of you. It’s even more difficult when you’re a transgender. That’s exactly what first time filmmaker Gina Hole Lazarowich wants to tell you with her “Krow’s TRANSformation”. Together with Krow, born as Kian, she wants to make people more aware of what transgender people are going through before, during and after their transformations. The collaboration turned into an extremely emotional, truly inspiring and immensely personal movie.

Paris. The city in which we meet Krow for the first time. A man who’s clearly enjoying his new life. But how did he got in the City of Light? Well, Lazarowich will show us that. She takes us back to Vancouver, three years earlier. Krow, still a girl, is talking about having the transformation. It was around the age of 11 during which he started to dress more like a boy instead of a girl but also during which he got bullied multiple times. Luckily it was also around that time, he met his female friend Ashton, who will later also make the transition to male. Both grown up now, they show us that they had to endure a rough and hard childhood that was filled with dark thoughts, bullies and tons of anxiety. However, their friendship, courage, and determination are what kept them going towards the life they want. They explain how they, the family but also total strangers experience their transformation (pre, during and post).

Krow and Ashton aren’t the only ones whose stories we get to hear and see. We also meet Kas Baker and Emily Seal. They’re married and are also part of the band Winter Youth. Both were born as a female but Kas decided a few years ago that he wanted to become a man. Kas was extremely open towards Emily about his transformation and for her it wasn’t a problem at all. She just saw the man she fell in love with and not the woman he was. We can’t only enjoy their stories but also the music as they made the soundtrack for this movie.

As you can see, “Krow’s TRANSformation” is a very honest, personal but also brutal story. A movie like this is exactly like a documentary about transgenders should be as it can really deliver all its important messages.

Director Lazarowich mentioned that she wanted to take this movie to schools and based on what we saw in this documentary, that’s really necessary. Before making the decision about his transformation, Krow was bullied severely at school just because he was how he wanted to be. Even his so-called friends turned on him. During “Krow’s TRANSformation” it becomes clear that he’s absolutely not the only going through this difficult time. His closest friend Ashton knew exactly what Krow was going through because he decided to start his own transformation a few years before Krow. From his experience, it becomes clear that there are still expectations when it comes to gender roles. But hey, if girls want to play football with the boys, let them. If boys want to wear a dress, they’re absolutely not sick. For Kas, the dark thoughts and the anxiety even lead to multiple suicide attempts. During one of those, he came very close to death but luckily he’s still amongst us living his best life. Thanks to the lust for life and his mum who saved him during his suicide attempt.

This is actually the message we also get from Krow. A message that’s especially for the parents. At first, Krow’s mum didn’t know how to handle the thought of her girl changing into a boy but after realising that it would make Krow much happier, she became his number one fan. That’s also exactly how Kas and his parents saw it. During his last suicide attempt, he called his mom. She didn’t see this as a sign of failure but she saw it as her son finally opening up about how he feels and what he has been going through during the past few years.

Last but certainly not least, “Krow’s TRANSformation” shows that no matter which if you transgender, cisgender or transsexual, you can always achieve what you want. Gender shouldn’t be a problem when applying for a job. Before his transformation, Krow was working as a female model and the fact that he also conquered the male fashion industry after his transformation shows that no matter what you want, you can get it.

With a documentary like this, it’s very important to bring the extremely personal stories perfectly to the screen and director Lazarowich and her team certainly did that. From self-shot footage by Krow and his family to childhood pictures and from photoshoot images to intimate videotapes. They show you the most personal events taking place in everyone’s life: Wedding, surgeries, etc.

“Krow’s TRANSformation” was the openings film of the Raindance Film Festival on the 18th of October and if you haven’t seen it on that date, then you should head to the film festival on Thursday the 24th of September. It’s an eye-opening and one-of-a-kind documentary, that’s extremely emotions, honest, gripping and socially relevant.