J Stevens’ Really Happy Someday, the story of a trans musical-theatre singer learning his voice again, had its UK premiere at BFI Flare, the London LGBTQIA+ film festival.
J Stevens’ Really Happy Someday had its UK premiere at BFI Southbank on the South Bank on Saturday 22 March 2025. The screening was part of the 39th BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival.
Stevens, a Toronto filmmaker who also produced and shot the film, met Breton Lalama, a musical-theatre singer, on a street corner on the day Lalama marked a year on testosterone.
That night Lalama posted dozens of stories about how his singing voice was changing. Stevens wrote the next day to ask him to co-write a feature and star in it.
Lalama plays Z, a stage performer whose voice cracks as he sings “On My Own” from Les Misérables at an audition. He works with a vocal coach to find his new register.
Filming began in the autumn of 2022, in blocks of two to four days across a year, with no chance of reshoots. The changes in Z’s face, body and voice are Lalama’s own.
The film premiered in the Discovery programme at Toronto in September 2024. It won best film and best screenplay at the Whistler Film Festival and earned Stevens a Directors Guild of Canada nomination for direction.