Viewers are discovering What Will I Become?, a deeply personal documentary about trans-masc youth, grief and survival. Featuring the stories of Blake Brockington and Kyler Prescott, the film asks how communities can honour lives lost while helping young trans people imagine a safer, more hopeful future.

Essential Takeaways

  • A personal documentary: Filmmakers Lexie Bean and Logan Rozos draw on their own experiences as trans suicide survivors.
  • Two lives remembered: The film focuses on Blake Brockington and Kyler Prescott, whose stories shaped its emotional core.
  • A festival favourite: What Will I Become? premiered in Berlin and received the Amnesty International Film Award.
  • A wider conversation: The documentary explores how transphobia, discrimination and rigid gender expectations affect young people.
  • New York screening: The film is scheduled for a NewFest premiere, with online viewing options also available.

A difficult story, told with care

What Will I Become? begins in a place of profound loss, but it isn't simply a film about tragedy. Its quieter achievement is the way it turns grief into a conversation about memory, belonging and the possibility of staying alive in a hostile world.

Bean and Rozos approach the subject as both filmmakers and survivors. That gives the documentary an unusual intimacy: the camera isn't looking in from a safe distance, but asking what it means to grow up while public debate treats your identity as an argument. According to Queerty, the film combines the pair's coming-of-age experiences with the stories of two young trans-masc people who died by suicide.

The result sounds emotionally demanding, and it is. But there's also a sense of tenderness in the project, as if every recollection is an act of keeping someone present.

Remembering Blake Brockington and Kyler Prescott

One of the film's central figures is Blake Brockington, a Black trans teenager from North Carolina who came out during high school and became the state's first openly transgender homecoming king. His achievement offered a vivid glimpse of confidence and possibility, making his death the following spring all the more devastating.

The documentary also remembers Kyler Prescott, a Southern Californian pianist, poet and LGBTQ+ advocate. Like Brockington, Prescott used his voice at school and beyond, yet faced discrimination that became increasingly difficult to bear. Their stories aren't presented as statistics or headlines; they're portraits of young people with talents, ambitions and unfinished futures.

That distinction matters. When stories about trans youth focus only on risk, audiences can lose sight of the people themselves. This film appears determined to restore the detail: the music, the courage, the public victories and the private pain.

Why trans-masc representation matters

Trans young people are more visible than they were a generation ago, but visibility doesn't automatically bring safety. The documentary arrives amid continuing arguments over healthcare, education, public spaces and the right to live openly, giving its central question a distinctly urgent edge.

Bean has said the filmmakers didn't want to leave the community's story to broadcasters or decision-makers who claim neutrality while others carry the consequences. That approach makes What Will I Become? feel less like an outside investigation and more like a piece of community storytelling.

The film also challenges narrow ideas about gender. As Harper Steele, one of its executive producers, told The Hollywood Reporter, cultural expectations around gender can be difficult for everyone to navigate, not only trans people. In that sense, the documentary's reach may extend well beyond its immediate subject.

A growing team behind the film

The project gained further attention when Steele joined as an executive producer ahead of its Berlin premiere. Her involvement brought another layer of public visibility, particularly after the success of Will & Harper, but the film's creative centre remains with Bean and Rozos.

The producing team has since expanded to include filmmaker Cheryl Dunye, Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, trans activist Raquel Willis and comedian Margaret Cho. Cho described the documentary in a press statement as important and beautiful, adding that it deserved to be seen widely.

That mixture of film, music and LGBTQ+ cultural voices could help the documentary travel beyond specialist festival audiences. More importantly, it suggests that the film is being treated not as a brief news moment, but as a work with a longer life and a wider purpose.

Where to watch What Will I Become?

After its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, where it received the Amnesty International Film Award, What Will I Become? has continued its festival run. Its New York premiere is scheduled for NewFest, with virtual screenings offered through the festival's online platform during the accompanying viewing window.

Availability may vary by country and date, so viewers should check the film's official listings, NewFest and reputable streaming guides before searching for it elsewhere. IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and JustWatch can also help track cast information, release updates and legal viewing options.

For audiences approaching the film, a little preparation may help. It's a story about suicide, transphobia and bereavement, so viewers who find those themes difficult should consider watching with support nearby. Even so, the film's purpose isn't to leave people in despair. It's to ask what solidarity looks like when hope has to be built deliberately.

What Will I Become? treats remembrance as a form of resistance, and hope as something a community can share.

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