Abstract
Call Her Ganda (dir. PJ Raval, 2018) chronicles the murder of transpinay Jennifer Laude by a US marine, and the subsequent court case. This essay draws from theories of necropolitics and hauntology, as well as the author's experience as a documentary producer of Call Her Ganda to raise critical questions about the representation of trans death, and to reflect on the possibilities and limitations of documentary as a trans activist tool. In doing so, the author lays out a looping logic as a parallel proposition to the vortical violences of colonization and transmisogny. This loop begins with the film's apparitional aesthetics, which rouse contemplation of the trans activisms that survive in the wake of trans death, and it continues with the film's activating address and impact campaign. I posit that such efforts can feed back into the communities from which a documentary has been extricated, working through/against the othering and exploitation endemic to documentary practice.
