Past Film/Video | Documentaries | Series & Festivals

No Ordinary Man

(Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt, 2020) 

Introduced by Ambrose DuPree, Columbus filmmaker, writer, and artist

A close-up of a colorful album cover by Billy Tipton.

This remarkable documentary of jazz musician and trans icon Billy Tipton blossoms into a collective, inspiring portrait of trans masculinity.

Tipton enjoyed a successful, decades-long career as a radio band leader, touring musician, and recording artist, later retiring to Washington state to start a family. After his death in 1989, it was discovered that Tipton was assigned female at birth. The tabloid media outed him, manufacturing the narrative of an ambitious woman passing as a man in order to sustain a music career. No Ordinary Man is a genre-defying documentary that rewrites those falsehoods into a more accurate portrait of Tipton as a trans pioneer. Through formally creative interviews with trans historians and artists, the filmmaking team not only creates an emotional tribute to Tipton but also a collective conversation about the beauty and strength of trans masculinity. (83 mins., DCP)

See the complete Tender Masculinity lineup.

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No Ordinary Man, courtesy of Oscilloscope Laboratories.

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About the speaker

Ambrose DuPree chevron-down chevron-up

Ambrose DuPree (he/him) is a Jamaican American filmmaker, writer, and artist from Columbus, Ohio. His work centers around grassroots collaboration, community celebration, and advocating for social justice, specifically uplifting Black, trans, and queer lives. He holds BAs in Film Studies and Strategic Communication from The Ohio State University. 

FILM/VIDEO PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
National Endowment for the Arts
Ohio Humanities

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Rohauer Collection Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY
Ohio Department of Development
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Wexner Family
Institute of Museum and Library Services
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts
CampusParc
Ohio State’s Global Arts + Humanities Discovery Theme
The Columbus Foundation
Nationwide Foundation
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY
Mike and Paige Crane
Axium Packaging
Nancy Kramer
Ohio State Energy Partners
Ohio History Fund/Ohio History Connection
Larry and Donna James
Bruce and Joy Soll
Jones Day
Alex and Renée Shumate

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Past Film/Video

No Ordinary Man