Creators Who Inspire: Meet Michael Mabbott & Lucah Rosenberg-Lee 

The moment filmmaker Michael Mabbott heard Jackie Shane sing, he was hooked. 

It was a bootleg recording of the R&B singer who made a name for herself performing in Toronto clubs throughout the late 1960s. 

“Her voice, the band, it was just extraordinary,” says Mabbott. “It was one of those albums that speaks to you, and when I did some digging and found nothing but rumors about what had happened to Jackie, I just felt compelled to find out who this was and what happened to her.” 

That search began more than a decade ago and inspired the extraordinary documentary Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story, which shines a spotlight on Shane’s music and her life as a Black, openly trans woman who left her Nashville home to carve out an all-too brief musical career north of the border. 

Mabbott joined forces with fellow filmmaker Lucah Rosenberg-Lee to tell Shane’s story. 

“I first heard about Jackie from Michael, and I was a bit surprised because being a Black trans person myself, I thought I knew a lot about the history. But I think it just generally speaks to the erasure of this history, which is obviously part of what we explore in the film,” says Rosenberg-Lee. 

One of the challenges facing the team was that the only existing footage was a single two-minute video clip of Shane performing live. But they did have Shane’s live albums, and after Mabbott contacted Shane in 2017, he began recording their phone conversations.  

“We spoke every week for four or five hours on average, and 11 hours straight was our record. It was a really remarkable year of my life,” says Mabbott. 

The film employs Black trans actors to portray Shane singing and speaking on the phone. Their performances are then heightened with the use of beautiful rotoscope animation that gives the film a dreamy quality. It all works together to paint a portrait of a pioneering musical icon.  

“I think it's really important for people to see that trans people have always been here,” says Rosenberg-Lee.  

“And I think it's important to see that trans people are more than their transness. What's so interesting to me about Jackie's life is that not only was she trans, but she was all these other things—an incredible musician, someone who was powerful, not just because she transitioned, but because she was a strong person who did some incredible things.” 

Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story won the DGC Special Jury Prize – Canadian Feature Documentary at the 2024 Hot Docs festival, inspiring audiences and critics alike. 

“Jackie’s story is about overcoming fear,” adds Mabbott. “Jackie talked a lot about how evil in the world, at its root, was caused by people who were afraid and that's what needed to be fought. And that's what Jackie worked tirelessly on when she was on stage, to be an example of overcoming your fear, having the strength and courage to be yourself.” 

Ingrid Randoja

Freelance writer Ingrid Randoja is the former film editor of Toronto’s NOW Magazine, the former deputy editor of Cineplex Magazine, and a founding member of the Toronto Film Critics Association.

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