Writer-director Levan Akin stoked controversy in Georgia after the release of his breakout film, the gay love story And Then We Danced, and in many ways his latest drama Crossing feels like a conscious response to that controversy; a brave and beautiful attempt to raise awareness about the difficulties and oppressions experienced by trans people in Istanbul.

Not that the film itself feels didactic or calculated; on the contrary, Akin’s film is not only a wonderfully performed and empathetic human story, but also feels like a familiarly structured odd-couple road-trip story that’s reminiscent of a Western.

Mzia Arabuli plays Ms. Lia, a Georgian schoolteacher in her 70s whose sister’s dying wish was that Ms.Lia find Tekla (Tako Kurdovaidze), Ms.Lia’s estranged niece.

While the story addresses how Tekla came to be ostracised by her aunt because she’s trans, ideas of gender, society and place are layered into the story from the beginning. Georgian and Turkish are gender-neutral languages, which often leads Ms.Lia into conversational difficulties as she searches for her niece; determined to find her, but also wrestling with her own transphobia and shame. But Ms.Lia herself challenges gender norms in Georgia; she’s unmarried and without children, indicating that at some stage, she made the decision to not be subjugated by marriage within a very macho society. It’s this macho society that has made the home of young Achi (Lucas Kankava) one of violence and intimidation; and when the opportunity arises to find some respite by acting a s guide and translator for Ms.Lia, he jumps at it. The unlikely companions embar on a road top from Batumi to Istanbul, a journey of buses, ferries and slowly evolving mindsets.

As they search for Tekla, the stigma but also bureaucracy facing trans people is constantly on display, not just in the jeers shouted at trans people in the street and stories of vicious, sometimes lethal attacks on trans people, but also in the endless forms, examinations and stamps of approval needed from doctors and judges. It’s clear that to have their identity recognised, trans women not only need to jump through endless red tape but to present themselves as hyper feminine and pleasing so that cis male officials will give them the approval they need to move through the world with some recognition and safety. Evrim (Deniz Dumanl) is a lawyer and advocate for trans rights, and through her work we get a flavour of how carefully trans people have to try navigate the system.

But amidst all the representation of difficulties, Akin layers in constant symbols of community and the idea of chosen families, which are both explicit and layered into the background of the lived-in cinematography, and the use of non-actors. Istanbul is covered with stray cats that become symbolic guardians, and long shots of boat rides often linger on the strangers in the backgrounds, showing how outsiders come together and support each other when in difficulty. Ms.Lia and Achi encounter several character along the way who offer them connection and emotional evolution, and while Crossing was never going to offer us a tidy resolution, it shows us that – like life – it’s about the possibility that lies even amidst the untidy and the outcast.
In this moving and affecting story, Crossing shows us again that trans people and society’s treatment of them show us the cages and rules that confine us all – and may be the key to liberation, if we let them.

• In cinemas now. Watch the trailer for Crossing below.