Call Me Micky is a 22-minute documentary short that refuses the usual shape of a transition story. Directed by Andrew Rasmussen and executive produced by Dominique Jackson, it follows New Jersey native Micky Angelo Petrillo after he began living openly as the man he had always known himself to be—at 59. Now in his sixties, Micky is not wrapping up a chapter. He is opening one.
The film’s real subject is what comes next: Pride celebrations, open mics, new friendships, public visibility, and a personality that will not be quieted. Rasmussen does not lecture or explain. He stays close enough to catch Micky’s humor, his candor, and the everyday absurdity of finally being seen. The result is intimate without being precious and funny without undercutting the stakes.
Jackson appears on camera with Petrillo for a conversation about identity and living openly. Her presence gives the film a second register—recognition meeting recognition—without turning the piece into a celebrity vehicle. Micky remains the center of gravity: larger-than-life, unmistakably Jersey, and determined to make up for lost time. He describes himself, with typical bluntness, as a two-and-a-half-year-old boy going through puberty in a man’s body. The line lands because he means it.
What distinguishes Call Me Micky is its timing. Most documentaries treat transition as the climax. This one treats it as the first sentence. The questions that follow—how friendships shift, how the world looks back at you, how you occupy a life you postponed—are the ones that linger. Petrillo’s memoir, Walking the Earth: First as a Woman, Then a Man, sits in the background as a longer version of the same insistence: it is never too late to begin.
At festival length, the film is a slice rather than a survey, and that is its strength. It does not try to stand in for every late-in-life transition. It spends time with one man whose world is getting bigger, and it trusts that audiences will recognize the universal part: the moment you give yourself permission to start again. The festival run that began this fall, including Newark International Film Festival, is the right first home for a portrait this specific and this alive.
Watch the official trailer for “Call Me Micky” on Youtube here:
https://youtu.be/jy4FQC-0QuY?si=96r3_tQZ14wJtBxc
The official website for “Call Me Micky” may be found at https://www.callmemickyfilm.com
