I Don't Know(1971)

Name: I Don't Know
Director: Penelope Spheeris
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Released: 1971-01-01
Duration: 20 min
Cast: Jimmie Michaels, Dana Reuben, Andy Spheeris, Linda Spheeris

Jimmie Michaels Dana Reuben Andy Spheeris Linda Spheeris

A truly major work, I Don’t Know observes the relationship between a lesbian and a transgender person who prefers to be identified somewhere in between male and female, in an expression of personal ambiguity suggested by the film’s title. This nonfiction film – an unusual, partly staged work of semi-verité – is the first of Spheeris’s films to fully embrace what would become her characteristic documentary style: probing, intimate, uncompromising. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2014.