Hola! I’m J Triangular— a Trans tropical samurai punk filmmaker — and I’ve been selected for the UnionDocs Summer Lab in New York City!

This is a tremendous honor and a powerful opportunity to elevate my latest hybrid documentary project: TRANSMIGRANTS (The Musical).

But here’s the truth — I’ve poured everything I have into creating my first fiction feature, The First Kiss of the Night. It’s still in development, because making cinema — especially bold, independent trans cinema — is incredibly expensive. That’s why I don’t have the funds to attend the lab.

So now I’m reaching out to you.

Transmigrants (The Musical) is an avant-garde, gender-bending, punk, spiritual, joyful and radically tender documentary. It follows the vibrant lives of the travesti gang in Medellín, Colombia — the third most dangerous country in the world for trans people.

Through participatory filmmaking, VHS diaries, musical performances, and magical realism, we create a cinematic space where the resilience, beauty, and revolutionary spirit of trans life shine.

Each protagonist offers a new dimension of trans existence:

️️Matilda Rossette: a fierce Venezuelan trans witch navigating migration and magic

Luana Du: a psychologist, narrative therapist, and defender of the rights of nature and the sacredness of all life.

Emma: a green witch with a mystical devotion to boots

DEM: a transmasc rapper who sings of T4T love and resistance

J (the filmmaker): A trans non-binary creator and poet embarking on testosterone HRT in Taiwan — and a legendary karaoke performer

And many more!!!!!

Why This Film Matters

In a world that wants to erase us, this film insists: we are here, we are many, and we are poetry—poetry that makes new futures possible for trans lives.

Transmigrants (The Musical) is a counter-narrative—fierce and tender—crafted in defiance of systemic violence. It pulses with transancestral wisdom, radical joy, and the collective power of transformation.

We’re creating a transfuturist cinema—raw, tender, punk, and sacred. A cinema that transcends binaries. After the transfeminicide of our sister Sara Millerey and the viral spectacle of her death, we carry a sacred responsibility:
to stop turning our pain into clicks—and instead, turn our lives into poetry and music.

We trans people are already the future!

We carry it in our bodies, our communities, our resistance.

This story is also personal: like Matilda, I’ve migrated — from Latin America to Taiwan — in search of a life where I can transition safely. This film honors all of us who move, shift, and reshape ourselves in the face of a world that tells us not to exist.

Why Now

We’ve completed only 10% of the film. UNDO is the catalyzer we need — a space to refine our vision, build deep collaborations, and elevate this film to new dimensions.

We believe in transparency, and your support will help us cover these items.

Crowdfunding Goal Breakdown: $5,300 USD

Flight (Travel) $1,200 – 22.6%

Lab Fee – $2,100 – 39.6%

Accommodation (NYC)- $1,000- (5 weeks) – 18.9%

Living Expenses (NYC)- $1,000 – 18.9%

How You Can Help

Every contribution — no matter how big or small — brings this dream closer to reality.

Share it. Fund it. Live it.

Let’s rewrite the history of non-fiction cinema, together. ✊

J Triangular (they/them/he/him) is a trans-non-binary visual artist, experimental filmmaker, multimedia poet, curator, and spiritual artivist. Born in Colombia and currently based between Taiwan and Medellín, their work delves into the creation of avant-garde queer collectives, mental health, and the fight against HIV stigma, with projects spanning Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Colombia, and South Africa. As one of the DWA screening coordinators for Visual Aids, they expanded the legendary project to Latin America, Asia, and Africa. They conceive cinema as a sacred space for freedom and social practice. Their work has been showcased across Asia, Europe, North and Latin America, including recent exhibitions at the New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum, Asian Art Museum, Cinemateca de Bogotá, State of Concept (Athens), and Documenta 15.

J is currently developing their trans punk feature film, The First Kiss of the Night.

About the Summer Documentary Labs:

The UnionDocs Summer Documentary Lab are a program for a select group of media artists from the US and abroad. Based in one of NYC’s most exciting neighborhoods, Ridgewood, Queens, the Summer Labs offer a platform for participants to spend the Summer making strides and clarify the creative direction of their projects to attract the potential team members, funders and producers they need to find their way to the finish. An intensive schedule of screenings, open seminar discussions, weekly industry “field trips,” and inspiring artist visits from some of the most dynamic voices across the field of documentary, the SUMMER DOCUMENTARY LABS are tightly structured environments that bring participants into a select group of emerging filmmakers to get challenged and encouraged to think through every aspect of their works-in-progress.

Drawing inspiration from across disciplines, this intensive program should not be mistaken for an industrial, journalistic, or traditional documentary training. Scholar Scott MacDonald highlighted in The New York Times that, “UnionDocs has a healthy sense that the older definitions of what constitutes ‘experimental’ cinema and what constitutes ‘documentary’ are up for grabs.” Much emphasis is placed on workshopping lab participants’ writing about their projects as a way to both clarify the creative direction and attract potential team members, funders and producers. Participants receive focused, honest and helpful feedback on their project proposals from prominent documentary artists and industry experts.

The Early Production Lab in July is for projects about to go into production. Filmmakers have already likely shot some of their material and have access to their subjects and are looking for ways to strengthen their media samples, and pitches and work through the ideas as they approach the production stage and plan for the entire process all the way through to distribution.