First Trailer for Levan Akin’s Trans Rights Drama Crossing – The Hollywood Reporter

Borders, political, social and societal, are being transversed in Crossing, the new film from And Then We Danced director Levan Akin. The drama, which arthouse streamer MUBI has picked up for the U.S. and U.K., stars Mzia Arabuli as Lia, a retired teacher who sets off to find her long-lost niece Telka, a trans woman.

The search takes her, and her neighbor Achi, to Turkey where they meet Evrim, a lawyer fighting for trans rights.

In the first trailer for the film, Achi convinces Lia to let him join her on her search.

“The film is based on a true story I was told whilst researching And Then We Danced,” says Akin, “about a grandmother traveling from Georgia to Turkey in search of her trans granddaughter. Just like with my previous film, making Crossing was very challenging. The existence of LGBTQ+ people in Georgia and Turkey is under large pressure and Turkey’s president Erdogan ran most of his recent presidential campaign around anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.”

And Then We Danced premiered in Cannes in 2019 and was released by Music Box Films in the U.S. Crossing has its world premiere on Feb. 15 as the opening film of the 2024 Berlinale Panorama section.