Director's Statement

I started out making a film about my adopted brother's journey to discover his new lineage. It was undeniably a great story, a real-life fairy tale. I also felt guilty that life had been easy for me but not for Marc. I imagined that by celebrating his amazing tale I could ease his pain, and maybe heal our relationship. I thought I'd be making a film about the second chapter in our lives. Little did I know we weren't done with the first.

Anyone who has met Marc will tell you that you can't tell his story without telling mine. Our rivalry growing up was the most important dynamic in his life, and remains so to this day. So I knew I'd end up in this film, but I had no idea it would become the personal journey it did. When you change your sex, you get tremendous pressure to bury your past, to let it disappear like the "M" that used to be on your drivers license. If you pass well in your new gender, the pressure is even stronger, especially from other transgender people who see passing as the Holy Grail. Returning to your past, much less reveling in it, is unthinkable. Before making this film I shared that view.

But as the film evolved, and Marc and I began to have a relationship again, he was the only one who wouldn't let me get away with forgetting my past. I wanted Marc to let my male past die as I had, but he had enshrined this history and even insisted on cherishing remnants of it. As much as I resisted this, I couldn't ignore the kernel of truth in what he was saying: I had to stop renouncing my history.

I started out believing this film was about Marc's quest for identity, but it was about my own. I thought my transition was complete, but instead Marc taught me I was only halfway, and that I had to somehow resurrect the first half of my life I had buried alive. This freed me to return home and reclaim my past. Though my situation is rare, everyone I know who has a sibling relates to the dynamic between Marc and me, and to my desire for my family to recognize who I've become instead of who I was when I left home.

Prodigal Sons has a deep reserve of high-octane dramatic fuel, but the film is so much more than its astonishing characters or the explosive moments we caught on camera. What sets this film apart is its exploration of the universal truths every family grapples with. In the end, this film is quite simply about love, and how one family faces challenges and triumphs that no one would have ever imagined.