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| Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story |
not available in the Digital Screening Room streaming encore
Update: Due to a technical mixup, I was not able to see this documentary during the festival, but I’m still going to review it. At the Frameline screening, Any Other Way was presented the Out in the Silence Award, given to “an outstanding film project that highlights brave acts of LGBTQ+ visibility in places where such acts are not common.”
In the 1960s, first in Memphis, later in Montreal and Toronto, an R&B artist was making waves, playing drums and singing. That artist was Jackie Shane, a name that had been nearly lost to history until just a few years ago when she resurfaced to great acclaim, including a Grammy nomination. Jackie played with the likes of Little Richard (pictured), Etta James, The Drifters, Marvin Gaye, and The Temptations. She was invited to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, but declined because they wanted her without makeup. She was also invited to American Bandstand, but declined because of the overt racism of the show, which, even after they grudgingly began allowing Black people in the audience, still kept them strictly segregated, out of the spotlight even when the featured artist was Black. The only surviving video footage of Jackie performing is from the short-lived but hugely influential Nashville TV series Night Train. Jackie’s albums have recently been re-released, and are available on CD and digital. Unfortunately, Jackie’s resurgence on the public stage was cut short by her death in early 2019.
Jackie’s birth mother was only 16 years old, so she left Jackie to be raised by her aunt, who gave her the love, support, and freedom to be herself, and thus the confidence to be a strong Black trans artist in the Jim Crow South, and also to move north to Canada for better prospects. Canada was not paradise on earth, but it was at least less physically violent in its racism. It’s a story of bravery for any time period, but from the 1960s it is phenomenal. This documentary is largely built around telephone interviews the filmmakers had with Jackie in the year before her death, but also recordings and photos, as well as Jackie’s own handwritten autobiography. She knew that her tale needed to be told, and the film crew have done her proud. Enthusiastically a MUST SEE.
Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story is distributed by the National Film Board of Canada (Vive le O.N.F.!), and was executive produced by Elliott Page, so I every much hope it becomes widely available in the near future. It is coming to select theatres in Canada in August 2024.
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