A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.
A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.
New York magazine’s October 2005 issue sent shockwaves through the literary world when it unmasked “it boy” wunderkind JT LeRoy, whose tough prose about his sordid childhood had captivated icons and luminaries internationally. It turned out LeRoy didn’t actually exist. He was dreamed up by 40-year-old San Francisco punk rocker and phone sex operator, Laura Albert.
Young Jeremiah lives in a stable environment with loving foster parents until the day his troubled mother, Sarah, returns to claim him. Jeremiah becomes swept up in his mother's dangerous world of drugs, seedy hotels, strip joints and revolving lovers. Salvation comes in the form of the boy's ultrareligious grandparents, but soon Jeremiah's mother returns. Maternal love binds the pair together on the road until Sarah's desperate and depraved lifestyle finally consumes her.
The literary persona JT LeRoy visiting Stockholm, Sweden in 2002, on a promotion tour for the novel "Sarah". Framed by footage of US highways and Heaviness "Curtains of Rain".
Enter JOAN, a warm, eccentric and sporting writer, and LUIS. The exchange becomes a dance between strangers of assumptions and moral calculations. Directed and written by Savannah Knoop. Produced by Jed Root. Starring Alessandro Magania.
