The lead cast for "Transaster," clockwise from top left: Molly McArdle, Laetitia Hollard, Daniel Ratcliff and Elaina Katzke.
Two years ago at age 14, Daniel Ratcliff made a radical decision to change his life. As he entered Monona Grove High School as a freshman, Ratcliff began expressing his true gender identity as a male.
“It was the summer between eighth grade and freshman year,” says Ratcliff. “It was a new school, new teachers and a new name that better fit me. It was the perfect time.”
This spring Ratcliff, now a 16-year-old junior at Monona Grove, will star in Transaster, a short film he wrote about the challenges facing the transgender friend of a popular high school athlete. Ratcliff plays the friend in the film, produced by the Children’s Film Academy of Madison, a nonprofit that highlights the work of young filmmakers in front of and behind the camera.
“I was honored that Daniel felt comfortable in bringing us such a personal and creative story,” says Ben Fritz, the founder of C-FAM and himself a Monona Grove High School graduate. “At first I thought this would be about the controversy over transgender participation in sports, but that’s not where the story goes. That’s great because it becomes less political and more personal.”
Director Dana Pellebon (left) and writer/actor Daniel Ratcliff of "Transaster."
The film, the title of which is a contraction of the words “transgender” and “disaster,” will be shot in mid-May in Madison. Local actor and director Dana Pellebon will helm the project and a Kickstarter campaign has been launched to raise an estimated $5,000 in production costs.
Ratcliff was also in C-FAM’s cast of Make A Wish, a short written and directed by and starring James Madison Memorial High School student Elijah Edwards. Best summarized by the phrase “be careful what you wish for,” the short has already been accepted by the 2021 Wisconsin Film Festival and the 2021 Wildwood Film Festival and is one of three shorts produced by C-FAM since its founding last year. The two other C-FAM productions — Greenies and The Child — also have been submitted to various film festivals, says Fritz, who is waiting for responses from festival organizers.
“We’re trying to push the Madison area forward because film is not widely celebrated here,” says Fritz. “We’re starting with 10-minute shorts because they are manageable and affordable.”
Fritz himself has filmmaking experience to draw on, including a decade in Los Angeles and his role in Stash Productions, a film company that he runs with several California partners. The group’s film Survival Guide, a full-length low-budget horror feature shot in 2017 at various Driftless Area locations, tells the tale of some kids menaced by witches while camping. American Players Theatre company member Colleen Madden plays a role in the film and also appears in Greenies alongside one of her two sons, both of whom have worked on C-FAM shorts. The film premiered at the 2020 Beloit Film Festival, earning the Best Wisconsin Feature award.
Fritz also created two web series — The Ethical Slut and Cynthia Watros Gets Lost — and served as producer on Aquarians, an earlier production filmed in Marinette and featuring Madden and fellow APT actor James DeVita. Fritz’s experiences with Survival Guide helped launch C-FAM.
He returned to Madison a few years ago to care for an ailing parent while still following a film career. “I am finding that I can do a lot of things here that I can do in L.A., maybe even more of them,” he says.
“A lot of kids who have been through Children’s Theater of Madison want to get into film. It’s something they watch every day. A little practical knowledge can give kids a one-up on what they’re watching, making them more discerning viewers.”
Actual film work provides young people with an entrée to the film industry. Fritz relishes his role and teacher and mentor and has high hopes for future productions and talented local kids on both sides of the camera: “We’re here to learn and to grow.”
