DOC NYC
BFI Flare Film Festival
Bendfilm Film Festival

Little Miss Westie follows two transgender siblings as they navigate puberty, school, family and transitioning during the Trump era. Ren is competing in the Little Miss Westie Pageant; her older brother Luca is coaching her on posing, make-up, and talent. He knows his stuff because he competed six years ago when he was living as a girl. Moving and unflinching, this documentary from co-directors Dan Hunt and Joy E. Reed challenges basic ideas about gender, while entertaining audiences as we observe this tween and teen bicker, struggle, and compete, while coming-of-age.

USA - 2018 - 1h 15m
Directed By: Dan Hunt, Joy E. Reed
Starring: Luca McCarthy, Ren McCarthy, Shelley Stoehr-McCarthy, Chris McCarthy

Director Biography - Joy E. Reed

Joy E. Reed has always championed the outsider in the projects they choose. Their first big break in documentaries was as an assistant editor on BUCK (Sundance Audience Award 2011) and they were immediately hooked. Joy's feature editorial and directorial debut LITTLE MISS WESTIE (Best Documentary, Outshine Miami 2019, Special Jury Award, BendFilm 2019), premiered on PBS America Reframed in 2020. A rural kid, Joy got their first job at 14, hauling cut trees for a disabled neighbor who made wreaths at Christmastime. That same year they earned $100– a fortune in the 80s!-- for writing computer code for a program that printed form letters. Joy has been alternating working with their back and their brain ever since; they have always lived beyond the binary. When not in the edit room, they can be found strumming their baritone ukulele, or on the unceded lands of the Munsee Lenape people, working in the fields of the Poughkeepsie Farm Project in exchange for vegetables.