February in Berlin is Berlinale time! Although there is no film with Elliot Page in the current edition of the international film festival, Page can still be seen regularly on the screens with the trans story “Close To You”. Page’s journey from Oscar®-nominated teen talent to Hollywood star and activist, via a lesbian, later a trans coming-out, is an inspiration for many, also – and perhaps precisely – because the actor did not mince his words in his autobiographical book “Pageboy” (2023) when it comes to the queerphobic conditions of the film world: “Hollywood does not lead by example, but merely reacts and lags miles behind,” it says.

Our find is a promotional photo for the film “Freeheld” (2015), in which Page and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple fighting for legal recognition of their relationship. Page campaigned for years for the film to be based on a historical case. For the film distributor Schmidt Schumacher, who provided us with this find for our archive, Page signed a few of these mounted stills for the German theatrical release in 2016. Interestingly, with “E. Page”. “Being queer is not linear, but a winding path,” Page writes in his book.

Exhibit description:
Still from “Freeheld” (2015), promotional material for the German theatrical release (April 7, 2016), with original signature by Elliot Page. Donation of the press agency Schmidt Schumacher. DIN-A1, photo Lionsgate/Universum, SMU archive.

Text: Jan Künemund und Heiko Pollmeier
Bild: Romain Pinteaux