Synopsis
Director: Matt Yoka
103 min, US, 2020
A head-spinning tale of sensationalist news and personal transformation, Whirlybird chronicles the extraordinary story of intrepid Los Angeles helicopter reporter Bob Tur and his wife Marika Gerrard. In the 1990s, the husband-and-wife journalist team captured from above the mayhem of the city, from the 1992 L.A. riots to the infamous O.J. Simpson highway chase—all the while battling their own abusive relationship. But now Bob, a transgender woman named Zoey Tur, reflects on her toxic masculinity and testosterone-fueled rise with a piercing sense of regret. “Unflinching and often exhilarating” (The Hollywood Reporter) and “compelling [and] sensitive” (TheWrap), Whirlybird is a real-life Nightcrawler for the #TimesUp era, deftly combining a searing look at exploitation TV with a “complicated, engaging, one-of-a-kind, portrait of a deeply flawed human” (Indiewire) and their own self-reckoning.