The Brandon Teena Story

The Brandon Teena Story
Directed bySusan Muska
Greta Olafsdottir
Produced byJane Dekrone
CinematographySusan Muska
Greta Olafsdottir
Edited bySusan Muska
Greta Olafsdottir
Music byGeoff Marx
Thomas Muer
Production
company
Bless Bless Productions
Distributed byZeitgeist Films
Release date
  • 1998 (1998)
Running time
90 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Brandon Teena Story is a 1998 American documentary film directed by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir.[1] The documentary features interviews with many of the people involved with the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena as well as archive footage of Teena.[2] After its theatrical release, it aired on Cinemax as part of its Reel Life series.

Plot

The film follows the story of Teena, a transgender man who was raped and murdered in rural Nebraska in 1993. The filmmakers drew on interrogation tapes, trial transcripts, photographs, and archival footage to reconstruct the events surrounding the case.[3]

Reception

In his 1998 review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote that the film showed viewers that, in the "Land of the Pickup Truck," there still existed an ingrained fear and hatred of nonconforming sexuality.[4] The film was generally well received, earning a 69% approval rating from thirteen verified critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 68% audience score from more than a thousand reviewers.[5]

"The Brandon Teena Story" is a study of the banality of evil based on deep-seated prejudices", says David Stratton for Variety.[6]

Awards

References

  1. ↑ "directors profile". Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  2. ↑ "Film review and history profile". Archived from the original on December 21, 2016. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  3. ↑ Mahato, Nikita (November 1, 2023). "The Brandon Teena Story: 1998 Documentary Outlines Tragic Hate Crime Murder Case". ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More. Archived from the original on January 5, 2024. Retrieved June 7, 2026.
  4. ↑ "'The Brandon Teena Story': A Rape and Beating, Later 3 Murders and Then the Twist". archive.nytimes.com. Archived from the original on June 11, 2025. Retrieved June 7, 2026.
  5. ↑ "The Brandon Teena Story | Rotten Tomatoes". www.rottentomatoes.com. Retrieved June 7, 2026.
  6. ↑ Stratton, David (March 6, 1998). "The Brandon Teena Story". Variety. Archived from the original on December 31, 2025. Retrieved June 7, 2026.
  7. ↑ Berlin Festival film profile
  8. 1 2 Donald Altschiller Hate Crimes: A Reference Handbook, 3rd Edition: A Reference Handbook, p. 295, at Google Books

Further reading

  • All She Wanted by Aphrodite Jones, a book released in 1996 about the murder.
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