Bernie Wagenblast

A crossed portrait of two transgender women working on their voices to make it sound more feminine and to match the new person they have become. One of them is 67-year-old Bernie Wagenblast, one of New York’s most famous voices. She is one of the male subway voices, heard by millions of commuters every day. She feels comfortable with both her voices. The other character is 25-year-old Jade Stephan, who feels that her “old voice is something that she treasures as a thing she will not be bringing out for company”. She is currently seeing a voice therapist to help her work on her voice. This film explores their relationship to their voices and how voices can be a factor in integration into society.

Cynthia Lowen’s powerful documentary Netizens highlights three women as each wages war against one of the internet’s most malevolent forces: prevalent and un-policed misogyny, harassment, and stalking. Directed at thousands of women daily by way of social media, it lies in plain sight, and its ramifications never remain only online. The film deftly depicts not only the forms digital abuse can take, from non-consensual pornography to invasion of privacy, but also the consequences for its victims.