Helen Barlow reports from the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
UTAH - The good thing about film festivals is being surprised. When filmmaker Jonathan Caouette (Tarnation) offered me his ticket for Becoming Chaz two days ago, I went to a film I might not have chosen and ended up having one of my most enlightening experiences of the Sundance festival.
It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for Chastity Bono. The cute blonde daughter of Sonny and Cher, who paraded around on their television programme, also felt from an early age that she was a boy inside a girl's body.
Becoming Chaz, directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, follows Bono's experience of changing from a woman into a man, step by step.
"There were moments when you felt extraordinarily uncomfortable, but you just had to keep rolling," Bailey admits.
Chaz freely stands in front of the camera having shots of testosterone administered into his buttock by his girlfriend of five years, Jenny, who is a recovering alcoholic. Chaz was once addicted to painkillers.
We watch too as Chaz visits the doctor specialising in breast removal and we can't help but notice how much happier he is without his rather large boobs.
It's Jenny, rather, who misses them but what she comes to miss far more is the sweet person she had fallen in love with.
Now, even if Chaz is far happier and able to go out into the world as he struggled to before, he is more abrasive and difficult to get along with.
He has of course turned into a man and, like Jenny, we get to see this change before our very eyes. It is astounding.
"Chaz really couldn't remember the early years of his life as a cute blonde kid," notes Fenton.
"He had been in a body that felt alien for 40 years and now for the first time he feels truly free. There's no doubting he's a guy now. He's still nice but there's something different. As a grumpy guy it all makes sense!"
Certainly Oprah Winfrey knows a good film when she sees one. Becoming Chaz became the first film she picked up for her new Oprah Winfrey television Network (OWN).
"We're really excited," admits Bailey. "She picked it up just as we were finishing the film. She is going to do for documentaries what she has done for books."
Initially the documentary shows Cher struggling with her child's so-called gender re-assignment, though she eventually embraces Chaz's transformation, even if she struggles to refer to him as he.
While she has already spoken about him on Late Night with David Letterman, as we see in the film, expect her to be a guest on Oprah any time soon.
The talk show queen did not attend the film's premiere, so Rosie O'Donnell did the honours.
Chaz, with Jenny by his side, was forbidden to talk about the movie because of the Oprah deal, though he couldn't contain himself, telling the rapt crowd: "It's amazing. When you are true to yourself, everybody loves you."
As for Caouette he was at Sundance presenting his horror short film, All Flowers in Time starring Chloe Sevigny.
He explained he was gearing up to make a feature-length documentary about his schizophrenic mother, who featured strongly in Tarnation, the 2003 feature film he made on his computer (which at the time was revolutionary).
We haven't, in fact, seen him for a while because he has been personally caring for his mum, though he promises to leave his own life story behind and make a work of fiction next.
Irish actor Brendan Gleeson was the talk of the festival in its early days for his leading role in the Irish film The Guard, which kicked off The World Dramatic Competition.
Directed by John Michael McDonagh, brother of Martin (who directed In Bruges, in which Gleeson also starred) the film follows Gleeson's small-town cop as he is forced to team up with Don Cheadle's straight-laced FBI agent.
McDonagh, speaking from the stage, called the film, which has been picked up for New Zealand by Transmission Films, "a very black comedy with some sad bits. Hopefully there's something in it for everybody".
Another Irishman, Pierce Brosnan, didn't turn up at Sundance for the world premiere of Salvation Boulevard, a Southern religious murder-satire where he re-teams with his Matador co-star, Greg Kinnear.
"A thriller set in a mega church? I'd definitely never seen that before," Kinnear quipped from the stage.
"I love Pierce. He has turned his 007 life upside down and has taken huge risks."
