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THE AMAZING TRUTH ABOUT QUEEN RAQUELA
(Iceland)
Raqulea is a poor ladyboy prostitute who dreams of escaping to Paris, France to supposedly find her knight on Champ's Elysee to marry and have a family. Being a Filipino she has little chance of getting a VISA needing someone from the west to be responsible for her application. When Raquela is discovered by a photographer she gets a job working as a webcam host on a popular ladyboy website. Within six weeks she becomes the first Filipino pornstar earning ten times the average salary in The Philippines. Wanting to escape she tries heticly over the internet to find that special guy resulting in being stood-up month after month at the airport. Things change when she meets Valery on-line, the only ladyboy in Iceland looking for friendship who promises to help Raquela with her VISA so she can take a walk in Paris.
THE AMAZING TRUTH ABOUT QUEEN RAQUELA
(Iceland)
Raqulea is a poor ladyboy prostitute who dreams of escaping to Paris, France to supposedly find her knight on Champ's Elysee to marry and have a family. Being a Filipino she has little chance of getting a VISA needing someone from the west to be responsible for her application. When Raquela is discovered by a photographer she gets a job working as a webcam host on a popular ladyboy website. Within six weeks she becomes the first Filipino pornstar earning ten times the average salary in The Philippines. Wanting to escape she tries heticly over the internet to find that special guy resulting in being stood-up month after month at the airport. Things change when she meets Valery on-line, the only ladyboy in Iceland looking for friendship who promises to help Raquela with her VISA so she can take a walk in Paris.
BE LIKE OTHERS
(USA/Iran/England)
In Iran, according to Islamic law, homosexuality is punishable by death. Ironically, sex-change operations are not only legal, they are embraced by a society that accepts male or female but nothing in between. Iran's gender reassignment industry is in a veritable boom. Attracted to members of the same sex, yet forced to deny their true selves, a young generation of men and women adopt the only identity legally allowed for them - transsexual. Socially conditioned and shamed into denying their sexuality, queer youths resort, seemingly willingly, to a most drastic measure: gender reassignment surgery. Every day in the Tehran medical office of Dr. Bahram Mir-Jalali, the country's most prominent sex-change surgeon, the waiting room is filled with new candidates for gender reassignment. The doctor, a hero to his patients, performs more sex-change operations in a year than the entire country of France does in ten years. Seen through the lens of those living on the fringes, Be Like Others is a provocative testament to the lengths some people will go to conform. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has notoriously proclaimed that there are no homosexuals in Iran. Oddly enough he's right. Now we know why.
FOOTBALL UNDER COVER
(Germany)
A dogged desire for equality and freedom -- at least for 90 minutes -- is at the heart of a documentary about a football match between the Iranian women's soccer team and a Berlin girls' squad in Tehran in 2006.
"Football Under Cover", shown at the Berlin Film Festival at the weekend, chronicles a year of work by the two sides to overcome numerous bureaucratic hurdles in Iran and fulfil their shared dream to play the unprecedented match.
The teams, both wearing headscarves, long smocks and tracksuit trousers to avoid breaking Iran's strict dress code, finally run out onto a muddy pitch with torn goal nets six months late. But the players' passion and the enthusiasm of an empowered all-female crowd offers a positive message.
"Let's try for freedom is the main message of the film, let's give it a go," director David Assmann, who also helped organise the match, told Reuters.
The film shows ecstatic Iranian women, not usually allowed into a football stadium even as spectators, jumping up and down on the stands, cheering and whistling, while a voice orders them through a tannoy to be more dignified.
The electric atmosphere among the women contrasts with frustration among men -- for once not allowed inside the stadum -- who have to peer in through cracks in the fence.
It was difficult filming in Teheran, particularly given the sensitive subject matter, Assmann said, although it helped that the documentary film and match were a joint project.
"I think without the film, the match would not have taken place," he said, arguing it put pressure on the Iranian authorities not to cancel the fixture altogether.
The obstacles faced by the German team included losing their sponsorship, failing to get the right paperwork and even having trouble finding long-sleeved tops and tracksuit bottoms for the players to wear at the match.
The film, which dwells mostly on the Berlin team's frustrating preparations and its players' reservations about going, has a humorous side.
The German players -- strapping young women who look almost comical in their bright white headscarves -- frequently descend into infectious fits of giggles.
But it is an Iranian player who steals the show.
Niloofar, who has dressed as a boy to train without a headscarf, has posters of British footballer David Beckham plastered over her bedroom and even dreams about him.
"Luckily, he spoke Farsi in my dream," she giggles.
"Football Under Cover", shown at the Berlin Film Festival at the weekend, chronicles a year of work by the two sides to overcome numerous bureaucratic hurdles in Iran and fulfil their shared dream to play the unprecedented match.
The teams, both wearing headscarves, long smocks and tracksuit trousers to avoid breaking Iran's strict dress code, finally run out onto a muddy pitch with torn goal nets six months late. But the players' passion and the enthusiasm of an empowered all-female crowd offers a positive message.
"Let's try for freedom is the main message of the film, let's give it a go," director David Assmann, who also helped organise the match, told Reuters.
The film shows ecstatic Iranian women, not usually allowed into a football stadium even as spectators, jumping up and down on the stands, cheering and whistling, while a voice orders them through a tannoy to be more dignified.
The electric atmosphere among the women contrasts with frustration among men -- for once not allowed inside the stadum -- who have to peer in through cracks in the fence.
It was difficult filming in Teheran, particularly given the sensitive subject matter, Assmann said, although it helped that the documentary film and match were a joint project.
"I think without the film, the match would not have taken place," he said, arguing it put pressure on the Iranian authorities not to cancel the fixture altogether.
The obstacles faced by the German team included losing their sponsorship, failing to get the right paperwork and even having trouble finding long-sleeved tops and tracksuit bottoms for the players to wear at the match.
The film, which dwells mostly on the Berlin team's frustrating preparations and its players' reservations about going, has a humorous side.
The German players -- strapping young women who look almost comical in their bright white headscarves -- frequently descend into infectious fits of giggles.
But it is an Iranian player who steals the show.
Niloofar, who has dressed as a boy to train without a headscarf, has posters of British footballer David Beckham plastered over her bedroom and even dreams about him.
"Luckily, he spoke Farsi in my dream," she giggles.
The young woman who rarely stops smiling is utimately forbidden from playing the game, for reasons that are unclear.
The film, which ends with a 2-2 draw, will not be publicly shown in Iran.
The film, which ends with a 2-2 draw, will not be publicly shown in Iran.
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