Aldo Garay’s documentary, Carmín, offers an intimate and layered exploration of the life and work of Sofía Saunier, a multifaceted Uruguayan artist and activist. Far from a conventional documentary, the film captures the simultaneous complexities of Saunier’s daily existence, balancing care for her elderly housemate Carmen and advancing her own creative projects, while documenting the realities faced by Uruguay’s trans community through her groundbreaking project, Transur.
Carmín is structured in distinct yet interwoven layers. At the surface, Garay films Saunier as she conducts interviews and collects personal narratives of marginalization, abuse, and societal violence against trans individuals. These stories, many of which appear on Saunier’s YouTube channel, Transur, give voice to lives often obscured by mainstream media’s sensationalism. In parallel, the documentary explores Saunier’s domestic life with Carmen, an elderly woman whose presence adds humor, warmth, and a tangible sense of responsibility to the narrative. Their shared experiences of moving houses several times together reflect both the instability many face in Uruguay and the solidarity that emerges from unconventional families.
Through this intimate lens, Carmín goes beyond legal frameworks and societal norms, revealing a social fabric still uneasy with trans visibility. Garay’s film is described as a comedy for new families, highlighting the artistic epicenter of Saunier’s life while celebrating the bond between two very different women united by resilience, empathy, and shared experience.
Aldo Garay, known for works such as Cerca de las nubes, El círculo, El casamiento, El hombre nuevo, and La espera, has emphasized that in documentaries, the script truly takes shape only during the editing process. “In a documentary, you discover things, you encounter unexpected scenes. You see how life unfolds. I would say the final edit is the script,” he has said. Garay’s first fiction feature, La Espera, premiered at the San Sebastián Festival and earned the FONDO Uruguay Award in 1999, as well as the SIGNIS/OCIC Postproduction Award in 2002. His film El hombre nuevo also received a Teddy Award at the Berlinale.
When discussing his approach as a filmmaker, Garay explains, “Today, my priority is to tell a story that isn’t mine. I don’t affiliate with first-person documentary. I like to try to organize the chaos of one life or many lives, to give order and a sense of epic struggle, small fights, like getting married or reconnecting with family. I aim to construct a character driven to achieve something that may seem small or insignificant. All cinematic resources are valid, except the voice-over where the director explains their thoughts. I only used it in the prologue of El casamiento, because I was invited to be the godfather, and it was part of the introduction. I don’t want to be the central axis of the stories; I want to tell them through the resources the protagonists provide.”
Sofía Saunier, born in Montevideo on May 31, 1974, is a multi-artist and trans activist. She is a member of the Asociación Trans del Uruguay (ATRU) and the creator of Transur, a project aimed at giving visibility to the lives of trans and LGBTQI individuals in Uruguay and worldwide.
Saunier’s career began in the 1990s in Buenos Aires, where she lived for 20 years and immersed herself in the underground scene as a drag queen, model, and dancer. Returning to Uruguay in 2000, she turned to audiovisual media, conducting interviews and exploring multiple artistic disciplines, including photography, film, drawing, painting, and writing. Her channel Transur, founded in 2013, has amassed over 70 interviews, offering diverse and nuanced portrayals of trans lives. “Most people didn’t have access to the life stories of transgender people beyond what was shown on TV, which was often sensationalist, like reporting when a trans person was murdered,” Saunier has noted.
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Another notable project is Transmotoqueras, a collaboration with Cecilia Estévez and Meili Galván. The trio documents their motorcycle journeys across Uruguay, showcasing the presence of trans women in public spaces and challenging societal expectations. “We are three very diverse trans women traveling, filming what we do. We want people to see that we can live a normal life like anyone else,” Saunier explained.
Saunier has participated in numerous panels and workshops, sharing her work and activism internationally. Her art has been highlighted by platforms such as the Museo Feminista Virtual de la Historia del Arte and Archivo X, dedicated to Uruguayan women artists. She also appeared in the film La noche que no se repite, playing the character Barbie. In 2022, she presented her work Guerreras Futuras at the FACT festival in Lyon and later at the Centro de Exposiciones Subte in Montevideo as part of the Semana del Arte Trans. In 2023, she returned to Subte with Transur: homenajeando a las que ya no están.
That same year, Saunier starred in Garay’s Carmín, while also appearing in the documentary Fugas: el arte como trinchera, which tells the stories of five LGBTQI people across South America.
In 2024, Carmín was screened at the Museo MALBA and Fundación Klemm in Argentina, and at the Festival FICC in Chile.
Carmín stands as a testament to the intersections of art, activism, and domestic life. It is both a comedic and deeply human reflection on contemporary Uruguayan society, exploring the struggles and triumphs of trans people while celebrating the bonds that defy conventional family structures. Through Saunier’s perspective and Garay’s cinematic vision, the documentary invites audiences to witness the everyday heroism, humor, and humanity of lives too often ignored or misrepresented.
Image credits: YouTube
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