Becoming Sophia
A struggling trans actress in Atlanta navigates the expectations of womanhood, romance, and familial reconciliation, slipping between reality and surreal dreamscapes as she searches for self-acceptance beyond the roles society has cast for her.
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Ava DavisWriter
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Project Type:Screenplay
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Genres:lgbtq, magical realism, romantic drama, psychological drama, afro-surrealism, coming of age
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Number of Pages:79
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Ava Davis is an actress, filmmaker, and Sundance Fellow whose work illuminates the inner lives of queer and trans people in the American South. Known publicly as the Duchess of Atlanta, she blends artistic vision with a deep sense of cultural stewardship. Her recent producing credits include Fishy, the 2024 Queer Dystopian Short, and the 2020 film The Duchess of Grant Park. She serves on the board of Out On Film, Atlanta’s Oscar qualifying LGBTQ film festival, where she also leads Industry Engagement to support emerging artists and strengthen the regional filmmaking community.
Georgia is the foundation of her voice. Although born in Germany and raised briefly in Southern California, Ava grew up in Duluth and spent early childhood in Columbus, with summers in South Georgia surrounded by cousins and her grandmother. She later attended the University of Georgia, shaping a lifelong connection to the state’s creative and cultural landscape. Today she lives in East Point with her husband. Paris is her favorite city to visit, and Grant Park remains her second favorite park in the world, a place that inspires her ongoing work in film and performance.
As a Black trans woman in the American South, I have spent most of my life negotiating between performance and authenticity, between being seen and being safe. I became a filmmaker because I no longer wanted to wait for permission to be visible. I wanted to create the kind of stories I needed growing up, beautiful, nuanced, and affirming depictions of queer and trans life, especially from the perspective of Black women like me.
Becoming Sophia is the culmination of that mission. It is a love letter to the complexity of identity, to family both chosen and inherited, and to the quiet ache of wanting to be loved on your own terms. The story follows Sophia, a Black trans woman who has spent her life shapeshifting for others, her family, her partners, the world. She reaches a breaking point. Her core flaw is the belief that she must earn love by performing perfection, femininity, or strength.
Over one weekend, she is forced to confront that flaw. Through emotionally vulnerable conversations, she begins to shed the personas she has worn like armor. By choosing authenticity over performance, she starts to define femininity for herself, not as a set of expectations to meet, but as a space of softness, power, and truth.
I wrote this story because I have lived parts of it. I also wrote it because so many others, especially Black and brown trans folks, are still living it. Too often, our stories are only told through tragedy or trauma. I wanted to write something that honors our resilience without flattening us into symbols. Something lyrical, grounded, and cinematic. Something that reflects the human condition in deeply personal and intimate terms. Becoming Sophia is ultimately rooted in a journey through femininity, how we define it, how we perform it, and how we reclaim it.
As a filmmaker, I aspire to build a body of work that reshapes how queer and trans people are seen in cinema. I want to open space in the canon for Black trans femininity, Southern queerness, and gender-expansive storytelling. I believe Becoming Sophia is the most honest and ambitious thing I have ever written. I also believe it can be a bridge, for audiences, for empathy, and for possibility.
