THEY is a coming-of-age story about fifteen-year-old, Jadan, kicked out of their home by their parents for being queer. It is a drama that explores not only the underbelly of a broken system, but that highlights love and intimacy. When Jadan's first love, Lila, goes missing, they risk everything to find her. 

SYNOPSIS:

The year is 2010. The film opens with JADAN, nerdy, sheltered, repressed- being kicked out of their house by their violent religious parents. Jadan makes their way to the city where they meet the wild and fierce 16-year-old, LILA, who introduces Jadan to genderqueer drag queen, CRYSTAL QUEER. The three of them face the streets together, find food, shelter, drugs, and do all they can to find a little joy in the harshest of conditions under bridges, condemned buildings, and homophobic shelters.

Jadan and Lila break into Jadan’s house one day to raid the fridge and fill their packs with supplies. They make their way to Jadan’s room, where Jadan and Lila share their first kiss. The relationship grows more intimate. They are falling in love.

Their struggles are also highlighted by the threat of cops policing tent city, and the ramblings of a right-wing conservative radio host, JOHN APPLEBAUM, who happens to be a closeted gay man. And while our three teens try to meet the challenges of daily life: finding food, a place to sleep, and violence free days - they are met with systemic resistance, apathy, and are chased by neo-Nazis, and pimps, one pimp in particular, RED, who is always watching the teens.

Crystal Queer is attacked, and everything changes forever because Lila disappears.

Jadan ends up in hospital and wakes up to find their mother, MADELINE. They confront one another without resolve. Madeline argues about her own struggle as a woman who felt she had no choice but to marry Jadan’s father after getting pregnant. Jadan asks her mother for accountability, to be seen, but Madeline isn’t able to do it.

Lila shows up as an apparition, or perhaps as a survival technique in Jadan’s mind. But the love between Lila and Jadan is palpable, heartbreaking, and beautiful.

WINNIE, the youth worker at the LGBTQ youth organization, shares her own story with Jadan about her 60-year-old transgender partner, Shiloh, and their experiences decades earlier, re: AIDS, the politics of the day, and as residential school survivors.

Jadan breaks, missing Lila. How do we grieve and move forward when a part of us is missing?

“We survive. We tell our stories. We do our best to make it. You have to fight.”

THEY, a coming-of-age story on the streets that really reflects the current times. It is a love story, a unique, high stakes drama that explores not only the homophobic and transphobic underbelly of a broken system, families, and the streets, but one that highlights love and intimacy between queer people, as well as their struggles and their joy. It is a story of hope and community, a story we haven’t seen in film before, where people fall through the cracks, and some rise up to change the world.