Enigma

Director: Zackary Drucker
Release Year: 2025

Enigma (2025), directed by acclaimed trans filmmaker Zackary Drucker, premiered at Sundance on January 28 and debuts on HBO on June 24. The documentary chronicles the intertwined yet divergent lives of April Ashley and Amanda Lear, two veterans of Paris’s legendary Le Carrousel cabaret, as they each navigated a world hostile to their existence, leaving a layered legacy of identity, resilience, and community.

 

Many of the film’s most affecting moments come from Drucker’s thoughtful inclusion of previously unseen archival interviews with Ashley, who passed away in 2021, alongside new footage that brings her presence vividly to the screen. Ashley’s reflections, entwined with interviews from fellow performers like Bambi and historian Morgan M. Page, form a powerful testament to the importance of shared kinship. One memorable scene reunites Ashley and Bambi in 2013, sharing champagne and laughter, an image of joy that has endured for over half a century. Amanda Lear receives similarly careful treatment, though with a distinctly different tone. Drucker’s interviews with Lear, dipped in empathy, probe the swirling rumors about her identity. Lear, now in her 80s and known as Europe’s “Queen of Disco,” has maintained that she was always born female. When presented with archival clips suggesting she once performed under the alias Peki d’Oslo at Le Carrousel, Lear deflects, coolly labeling them as misidentification.

 

Drucker’s approach, described in Out as a loving yet probing act of connection, not “transvestigation”, encourages viewers to question how identity is both personal and socially constructed. Drucker explains that she first discovered Lear’s image at age 18, hanging Lear’s 1960s headshot beside her bed as an aspirational archetype for her own womanhood, a personal narrative that becomes part of the film’s emotional spine. This desire to understand the woman behind the myth underpins the documentary’s hard questions and tender revelations. At Sundance, Out praised the film’s structure of parallel storytelling: Ashley’s candid openness contrasts with Lear’s guarded mystique, illuminating two equally valid survival strategies. Through gripping archival material, including arrest records for “Peki d’Oslo,” and poignant testimonials, Drucker presents both women's choices with respect while highlighting their cost, whether borne of visibility or obscurity. Critics have lauded the film’s thematic depth. POV Magazine applauded how Enigma "honours multiplicity of trans experiences" and trusts non‑answers as much as answers, asserting that Drucker gives both women equal weight and authority. Decider called it a "riveting dual portrait," underscoring that Drucker’s empathetic yet probing lens respects both women’s agency.

 

Enigma holds particular resonance in 2025, as anti‑trans rhetoric mounts globally. Many young trans people feel erasure looming, and some turn to detransition under societal pressure. Drucker’s film reminds us: trans people have deep roots and enduring capacity to grow old and thrive, if they can find community. The archival scenes at Le Carrousel, where trans women mentored each other, and Ashley’s later legal triumph (culminating in the UK’s 2004 Gender Recognition Act), offer a roadmap of survival steeped in solidarity. The documentary becomes a quiet political act: preserving erased histories. Drucker told Out that bringing these stories forward is not “just an artistic opportunity but a political responsibility,” a mission reflected in her work since The Stroll and The Lady and the Dale. Enigma lives up to that mission: a beautifully balanced tribute to resilience, fragility, and love across generations. Enigma is more than biography. It’s an exploration of identity’s infinite possibilities. Whether one chooses openness or ambiguity, the film honors that choice, even as it lays bare the loneliness and cost that can accompany it.

 

At its heart lies a call to community: trans people do not survive in isolation. They survive together. Just as April Ashley’s words resonate, “Be truthful to yourself and you will be magnificent”, so too does Drucker’s film urge newer generations to seek connection, find legacy, and believe in futures beyond erasure. In 2025, amid rising hostility, Enigma is both reminder and refuge, and a powerful invitation to lean into one another. Let this film be seen. Let it be shared in classrooms, homes, clinics, and anywhere a young trans person might be wondering if there's still a future waiting for them. Enigma offers more than a history lesson, it offers hope. And in 2025, that’s nothing short of revolutionary.

 

via: youtube

wikipedia and imdb and out.com

Image credits: YouTube

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