Uncovering anxiety

When he’s hurtling down the highway for solo adventures on his Honda CB500X, Ande Brown often finds himself on Page 1 of an unwritten screenplay, drifting into imagined narratives about the interior lives of the men and women on the road around him.

“You go through any small town, and inevitably there’s a billboard for a real estate agent, so I’ll start making up a story about how they got into the business,” says Brown, a filmmaker who didn’t consider saying “cut” until his late 50s. “Hours will go by and I won’t even realize how far I’ve gone.”

Though he acknowledges that he’s a late bloomer in just about every way, Brown has used storytelling as escapism since he was raised by a devoted single mother in Arizona during the 1970s: at Phoenix’s airport, in an era of lax security, an adolescent Brown would sit in the terminal and concoct storylines about travellers’ comings and goings.

“There are ideas that float around, and they’ll find a head to go into, and if you reject it, they’ll find another one. There’s all kinds of inspiration out there, but you have to be open to it,” says Brown, whose latest short film, Half-Naked, premières Saturday at the Gimli International Film Festival.

The 64-year-old Brown — who became a Canadian citizen in 2009 and whose partner grew up in Transcona — was always highly receptive to inspiration, but it took a series of major life changes for him to broadcast his artistic responses.

In 2018, he moved to Manitoba so his partner could be closer to her ailing mother, effectively retiring from a decades-long career in environmental science and spatial analytics.

Meanwhile, he began coming to terms with his gender identity: at 58, Brown began a regimen of testosterone injections and the emotional journey of transition. Better late than never, Brown’s supportive partner told him.

With a renewed perspective on life and emboldened by a community of artists in Winnipeg, Brown spent more time pursuing rejuvenating acts of creativity.

At a storytelling workshop organized by Doug Darling of Tripwire Media, Brown was encouraged to write a story to read out loud.

“I really hadn’t talked about my transition to anyone — just a few friends, neighbours and family members,” Brown recalls. “I had never really said anything aloud to total strangers.

“On the second day, when we were supposed to read our stories, I said, ‘Doug. I’m so nervous. I feel sick.’ He said, ‘You can go last, you can do it, you can not do it — whatever works,’ but he reminded the class it was a safe environment. So I told my story.”

It was about the first time Brown returned home to Arizona to visit his mother after beginning his transition, a shift that coincided with the emergence of a deeper voice.

“When I called her on the phone, she didn’t recognize me and hung up. I called back and she kept hanging up. Finally, I texted my sister and said, ‘Can you tell mom to answer the phone?’ and she said, ‘She’s not answering because she says there’s a man on the line.’ I thought, ‘Hmm. That’s interesting.”

Encouraged by the feedback from his workshop peers, Brown continued to explore filmmaking. In 2024, he submitted a roughly cut, self-produced short film depicting his daily regimen of gender-affirming injections to Reel Pride, Canada’s oldest LGBTTQ+ film festival. Screening at the Gas Station Arts Centre, Better Late Than Never was recognized by the jury — which included this reporter — as the best Manitoban short in competition.

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With his first shorts under his belt, last summer, Brown went to the Gimli International Film Festival to make a case for his biggest project yet: a short film starring professional actors with a unionized crew.

“My partner writes all my jokes so she told me to say that while the film’s called Half-Naked, let me be clear — it’s the top half,” says Brown, who pitched his project to a panel of filmmaking professionals in GIFF’s annual $15,000 RBC Emerging Filmmaker Pitch Competition. “Then I paused and said, ‘Though there could be a sequel.’”

Brown was declared the winner, earning production funds from the bank, plus support from the Winnipeg Film Group, the National Screen Institute, Manitoba Film and Music, and Film Training Manitoba.

Brown’s pitch was inspired by his own life as a trans person living in the suburbs, when taking a shirtless walk can be an invitation for unwanted attention, intense anxiety, and body and gender dysmorphia.

“The first time I went shirtless in public, I was very nervous. I thought people were staring at me. I thought people were going to do something to me,” says Brown, who recalls with pain the memory of Sam Nordquist, a trans man who was kidnapped, tortured and killed in Hopewell, N.Y., in 2025. “I hate that we have to think about these things.”

Brown wanted to make a film that helped trans people feel less alone in their experiences while also destigmatizing trans bodies in film.

“I think people just need to get used to seeing trans people in trans bodies. We’re just living our lives, not hurting anybody, not doing a thing,” says Brown.

Unlike his earlier shorts, Brown now had the budget and the wherewithal to hire an onscreen avatar for himself. Rather than choosing someone in the same age bracket, the filmmaker went younger, casting a 28-year-old Canadian songwriter named Bells Larsen for the leading role.

Brown saw Larsen perform in Winnipeg last year; his music, specifically his last album, Blurring Time, proved profound for Brown, who felt as though Larsen was describing his own experiences of transition and pride through his introspective lyrics.

On Blurring Time, released in 2025, Larsen melds his “high” voice with his “low” one, harmonizing with his pre-transition self.

“It’s a really brave thing to do to put yourself out there and talk about who you are from the deepest points of view,” says Brown of Larsen, who performed earlier this month at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. “I just had so much respect for him, and I thought, ‘If I could pick anybody in the world to play me as a younger person — my gosh, there couldn’t be a better choice than him.’”

When Larsen agreed to act in Brown’s film, the filmmaker says, “I just hung up the phone and started crying. I was just overwhelmed that someone would be that kind to me, who has no idea who I am — I’m not on IMDb. I think the world of him and what he’s doing.”

As Brown gears up for audiences to see his latest film, the filmmaker says the work’s merit is defined by the freedom he was granted to try.

“I know so many people who get afraid: What if I don’t do well? If I’m not going to be the best, why should I do it? I’ve come to realize that I don’t care,” Brown says with a laugh. “That’s the only good thing about getting older. Make fun of me, whatever. I don’t care. I’m going to keep trying. I want to learn, I want to be a student.”

Ande Brown wants to take off his shirt.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com