The photographs alone are worth the price of admission

| Apr 24, 2024

Casa Susanna is a fascinating window into hidden queer history.

| Jun 29, 2023

We learn very little about the women whose lives were ruined too. What about their stories — the constant pandering that meant you had to sit there meekly or move home?

| Feb 9, 2023

These are human tales of strengths and weaknesses, triumphs and flaws, and they are handled by director Sébastien Lifshitz with great care and sensitivity.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 31, 2023

Lifshitz truly crafts an illuminating film filled with many insightful details.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 29, 2022

Lifshitz blends archival footage and present-day material seamlessly, weaving his story in intricately connected threads. Love forms the central through line. Who could say no to anyone self-actualizing?

| Nov 28, 2022

It brings a noteworthy spotlight to a meaningful community-gathering place for transgender women and cross-dressing men. There's respect given in the documentary, but viewers will sense that more of Casa Susanna's individual stories could have been told.

| Nov 26, 2022

"Casa Susanna" is a must-see documentary regarding transgender portrayals, along with "Disclosure" and "Born to Be."

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 24, 2022

An absorbing and poignant watch that’s essential for anyone interested in queer history.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 13, 2022

By shining a light on the past, Lifshitz lights a beacon for people who feel outcast in today's world.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 9, 2022

Unfortunately, it ends up mostly focusing on the superficial aspects of transness that cis filmmakers have always been obsessed with.

| Original Score: 3.5/10 | Oct 18, 2022

Lifshitz gives too much screen time to cis relatives, fails to lead his trans subjects toward anything more than broad strokes, and ends up with a film that over-explains basics of transness more than it delivers this history to its own community.

| Sep 25, 2022

While the lack of a consistent core subject puts the film a little out of focus, “Casa Susanna” excels at inviting you to understand a chapter of time through some of the everyday people who lived through it.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Sep 22, 2022

There is much we will never know about what went on behind the casa’s walls, but there is enough here to get a taste of it. For me, at least, I was able to walk away enlightened and humbled by the beauty and freedom of these stories.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 19, 2022

Complex and riveting.

| Sep 18, 2022

The archival images in Casa Susanna show an embrace of mainstream femininity, the norms of the society that made it a risk to even pose for them, and it is astonishing and beautiful that they survived.

| Sep 14, 2022

A historical archive about a community of individuals inhibited and oppressed for their fluidity. [Full review in Spanish]

| Sep 12, 2022

Lifshitz has crafted a tender and human work of gender history.

| Sep 10, 2022

While Casa Susanna contains a different kind of heartbreak than one may associate with hard-hitting documentaries, the stories told burst with pathos and love. Do not ignore this film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 10, 2022

Gentle, but overall absorbing, Lifshitz adds another chapter to his own varied, priceless scrapbook of queer and trans realities his energies and investments have saved from the continual erasure of ignorance and hatred.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 6, 2022