First look at new thriller, Daughter starring trans actor Ian Alexander

January 12, 2023 Queer Forty Staff 2 min read

Dark Star Pictures is gearing up for the release of their new thriller film Daughter on February 10, 2023.

Daughter stars Ian Alexander in the role of “Brother”. Alexander made history as the first out transgender Asian-American actor on television in the role of Buck Vu on Netflix’s The OA and later as Gray Tal on Star Trek: Discovery. Going by they/ he pronouns, Alexander doesn’t identify completely with any one gender.

The film also stars an ensemble cast including Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), Elyse Dinh (Spider-Man 2), and Vivien Ngô (“Queen Sugar”). The film is written and directed by Corey Deshon (“A Million Little Things”).

(L-R) Ian Alexander as Brother, Casper Van Dien as Father, and Elyse Dinh as Mother in the thriller film, DAUGHTER, a Dark Star Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Dark Star Pictures. — (L-R) Ian Alexander as Brother, Casper Van Dien as Father, and Elyse Dinh as Mother in the thriller film, **DAUGHTER**, a Dark Star Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Dark Star Pictures.

The movie is about a young woman who is kidnapped and inducted into a bizarre family as their new surrogate daughter. As she navigates through this twisted dynamic, awful secrets about the past are revealed, leading to even darker implications about the future.

When asked what the film was about and what inspired it, Deshon said: “From the wars we fight over our conflicting worldviews, the insane mental gymnastics we conjure in order to justify them, and the insignificance of truth in the absence of freedom, comes Daughter. Shot on 16mm film with a predominantly Vietnamese cast, Daughter is a uniquely diverse and genre-bending tale in the vein of Dogtooth meets 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Inspired by feminist existentialist philosopher Simone De Beauvoir’s “The Ethics of Ambiguity,” this film is a meditation on the morality and ethics of freedom and creative expression within an oppressed system. Through this surrealist psychodrama, we seek to explore the questions ‘Can one truly be free if they do not will the freedom of others?’ and, ‘If that freedom must come at a moral cost, who is going to pay?’”.