Butterflies in Berlin

In early 1930s Berlin, a city of cabarets and new freedoms, one young person sets out to become the woman she always knew she was, becoming one of the first people in the world to undergo gender-affirming surgery. Her transformation arrives just as the Nazi Party is rising to power, and the openness that made her new life possible begins to disappear. Directed by Monica Manganelli, Butterflies in Berlin: Diary of a Soul Split in Two tells this story through striking animation in an art deco style, setting one woman's personal awakening against a society sliding toward darkness. The thirty-one-minute short is an Italian and German co-production, with Paolo De Santis, Chris Jones and Sharon Fryer in the cast. Part history and part inner journey, it asks what it takes to stay true to yourself when the world around you is closing in.