“How did you become who you became?” asks Angelo Madsen Minax in the opening voice-over to “North by Current.” It’s one of many searching questions in Minax’s restless personal essay film about his family, himself and the ways in which we understand each other.
Interlacing his visits to his folks in a Michigan lumber town with his reflections, the filmmaker reckons with the unfathomable loss of his niece, his vibrant sister’s rocky recoveries and being transgender in a traditional, Mormon environment.
Any one of these subjects would be enough for a single film, but part of Minax’s point and method is how these experiences can illuminate one other.