Karen Bernstein has numerous producing credits to her name in the field of documentary film, has directed a number of TV documentary episodes, and is the co-director of “Richard Linklater: Dream Is Destiny.” “i’m gonna make you love me” marks her solo directing debut on a documentary feature.

“i’m gonna make you love me” will premiere at the 2019 DOC NYC film festival on November 7.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

KB: It is a story of one life and two people — Tish and Brian — between two same-sex weddings, the first a farce and the second for real. “i’m gonna make you love me” is a full-length documentary about the life of Brian Belovitch, who in the 1980s as a transgender woman named Tish, was one of New York’s most famous downtown divas. “Tish was a glamorous, busty lusty, Fellini-esque beauty, cabaret chanteuse, party-and-good-time girl,” says journalist Michael Musto in the film.

Then, after more than a decade as Tish, she transitioned back to Brian. Now in his sixties, Brian’s iterations include army wife and loving husband, sex worker, club performer, actor, author, AIDS survivor, and playwright. Today, he’s a substance abuse counselor for the LGBTQ community. His unique odyssey is a moving and thought-provoking look at gender identity. It’s also a love story, a tale of survival, and a colorful hearkening back to a gritty Manhattan and the glory days of access TV.

That Brian considers his initial transition a mistake may cause a stir among certain progressive circles, and wrongly appeal to right wing narratives. While such a response points to a type of conservatism worth exploring, “i’m gonna make you love me” is neither political in nature, nor a polemic film. It’s about the universal desire to feel comfortable in one’s own skin, and the reality that some of us have to work much harder to get there.

One could say that I started the film in 1993 when I first met Brian, a friend of a friend, who had been invited to my birthday party in NYC. But it wasn’t until 2014 that I picked up a camera and started shooting anything. Brian had been contacted on Facebook by the sister-in-law from his first marriage to David. Though she had been a young girl in the 1970s, Kim vividly remembered Tish as this remarkable woman who was full of life and good humor. Imagine Kim’s shock when she discovered that the woman who married her brother was actually a man named Brian.

This became a madcap story that took everyone by surprise. Kim and Brian have never met in person but spoke by phone. I had hoped that Kim and her family of origin — including Tish’s first husband, David — would participate in this wild journey of making a documentary film on Tish/Brian. They all declined and I did not push the issue. The cultural historian in me saw this propitious moment as an interesting way to start the story of Tish/Brian, and wrap in the almost frightening power of social media in altering the narratives we live by. So, I moved on to different ways to tell the story of Tish and Brian.

For many years, with the help of many friends and my editor, Nevie Owens, I played with different structural concepts in telling this story. It was a struggle because I did not want the film to become a personal documentary, but on the other hand, I was fascinated by breaking apart the fourth wall, so to speak. I knew Brian and Jim; they were friends. It seemed silly to hide that fact.

I knew that a certain level of intimacy might be compromised by bringing in too many crew members; neither did I have the money to pay a crew so the first few shoots were really produced and directed and shot by me. I have given myself a “really bad camera and sound” end credit as a result. When I came back with all this footage, much of it out of focus, my editor, Nevie Owens, said two things: “you have to get your eyes examined” and “we better figure on a defining style to make this film gel.”

I re-watched every single biographical/autobiographical documentary I could think of, and read countless memoirs about being transgender, as well as books on representations of the body in photography and cinema. Many scions to be footnoted here including Susan Sontag and Susan Faludi. In the end I found myself impressed once again with Jonathan Caouette’s brilliant film, “Tarnation.” What I found most helpful about it was the kind of hodge-podge quality of the shooting and editing. It seemed to express his inner workings/day dreams and nightmares as both a son and a filmmaker.

This inspired me to create these moments in our film, which Nevie and I termed “flights of fancy.” They’re moments inside Tish/Brian’s head when fantasy merge with reality, or, at least when I thought they would. Since the awkward teenage boy that was Brian in the 1970s immersed himself in old movies, I looked for films that would have shaped his fantasy image for Tish, a femme fatale if ever there was one.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

KB: I have known Brian since 1993 when he came to my birthday party in NYC. We were introduced by a woman I was dating at the time. Days later, I agreed to drive him in his car to a driver’s test at the Brooklyn DMV. He had never had a license as Brian, only as Natalia or “Tish”. We got very lost in Brooklyn, as GPS and smartphones had yet to be invented. So, I got this incredible tour of all of Tish’s favorite haunts, tricks, and street walks. I listened while he told me the whole story which, decades later, became the film “i’m gonna make you love me.” We’ve been close friends ever since.

I was drawn to this story from that very first drive around Red Hook, Brooklyn because it was so far afield from my own life, even though Brian and I are of the same generation. We were the generation that had to actually live a Queer life in the open. Though I had entertained moments of play-acting the “top” or more of a butch approach to sex and life, transitioning, or re-aligning my gender was never a thought. I took the route of ardent and active feminist. Though so many of my friends were gay men, I had never understood the desire some men felt to dress and perform as female archetypes. It was the exact opposite of what I felt being a woman should be, and I fought the spirit of female fantasy down with a double-edged ax.

So, in the 1990s, when so many gay men had passed from AIDs and related complications, but Brian/Tish had somehow managed to pull through, I came to their story in a softer way. I could understand why, in Brian’s case, many men felt that acting or becoming a woman would be easier than being openly gay. That became fascinating to me. In 1994, Brian asked if I could help him face the oncoming specter of illness by managing his estate. His T-Cell count was low and getting lower and, on top of the infections from illegal silicon injections, he had just been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.

For a long time I wondered if this film would become a maudlin look at the end of a remarkable life, but he came back from every deadly turn. He took the drug cocktail for HIV when it first came out, and Interferon for Hep C. It was like watching the proverbial cat with nine lives.

Since you can never tell a story in documentary film without great photography and film footage, I was blessed by the confidence of the Nelson Sullivan estate and collection. Wow — from the very minute I saw some of this footage on YouTube, it was like falling in love. I knew that this story of Tish and Brian must by told through Nelson Sullivan’s very personal lens on NYC in the 1980s.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

KB: I want people to contemplate gender in a way that is not political. Brian needed Tish to survive and, in the end, Tish need Brian to survive. They have always needed one another.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

KB: Raising the money continues to be the biggest challenge. It was a hard sell, believe it or not! The market for LGBTQ documentaries is flooded so in the end I produced the film myself and attracted investors without pre-selling anything.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made.

KB: Crowdsourcing for some investor money, but I have floated most of this with my own money. The budget is very low because no one is getting paid what they should! If there is any profit after all expenses are paid and the investors are recouped, Nevie Owens and I have agreed to donate to a nonprofit that works with LGBTQ youth.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

KB: While in college, I majored in Political Science, but was always active in Theater. For a long time I considered myself an actress/wannabe director for stage, primarily doing women’s theater with a street activist edge. At one point in the 1980s, I realized that societal change was happening by making documentary films, not in street corner protests.

I was a tenant organizer in Boston, and a film distributor approached us to see if we wanted to host a screening of “Metropolitan Avenue,” a great vérité documentary film about community organizing in Brooklyn. My otherwise depressed tenant group walked out of that film screening with renewed enthusiasm, inspired to keep building the organization. It was a complete turnaround in attitude for us all. From that job I went to work with the great Henry Hampton [on TV documentary series “Eyes on The Prize”].

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

KB: The worst advice I received was from a producer who later had a nervous breakdown. She advised me to get a subscription to TV Guide, and study each issue closely. I could not bring myself to even open a copy.

The best advice I ever got was from my mentor, Henry Hampton, and [TV executive producer] Judy Crichton — both dead now, unfortunately. They advised us all to find the kernel of drama in each story from history, then work out from there. Henry was also a big stickler for editorial balance in documentaries. I remember that there were loud debates among producers at [Hampton’s production company] Blackside about whether or not a racist Sheriff should be interviewed.

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

KB: Keep your day job. Learn important technical skills that can float you while producing films. I wish I had studied to become a plumber.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

KB: Lizzie Borden’s “Born in Flames” and “Working Girls” and Gillian Armstrong’s “High Tide.”

I love narrative feature films that explore aspects of humanity that documentaries cannot easily tread.

W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

KB: There’s much more excitement about the female experience, regardless of age and background. I would love to see it backed up with more capital!