The city of Coffs Harbour will play host to its first ever World Premiere film screening as new Australian documentary Becoming Colleen exhibits at the 2019 Screenwave International Film Festival on January 12th.

Becoming Colleen is a documentary about Colleen Young’s transition from male to female in the regional community of Coffs Harbour – at the age of 82.

Having lived most of her life as Colin – a husband, father, policeman, film-projectionist and self-declared shoe fetishist, Colleen dreams of gender reassignment surgery in Thailand, but must face the reality of transitioning into a Christian run aged-care nursing home instead.

From early childhood Colleen knew she was a girl in the body of a boy, but after the untimely death of her sympathetic mother she sought acceptance by supressing a vital part of herself.

Colleen went on to marry Heather and became the father of two sons. It was only later in life that she started to open up to her wife.

The film is directed by Ian Thomson, director of Australian LGBTQI surf documentary, OUT In The Line-up (2014).

Along with Ian Thomson, festival guests at the premiere include Executive Producer Carolyn Johnson (Producer of Oscar-nominated Tanna), editor Stephen Gamba, and the transgender activist and subject of the award-winning book ‘The Trauma Cleaner’, Sandra Pankhurst.

The filmmakers together with special guests, Sandra Pankhurst and Debbie Spillane, in conversation, after the film.

For the complete line-up of premieres, galas, festival guests, Q&A sessions, and films, visit www.swiff.com.au.