The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, directed by Olaf de Fleur Johannesson, is an 85 minute drama which chronicles the story of a naive but street smart Filipina transsexual prostitute named Raquela who decides to travel in order to find her prince charming.
Like many Transsexuals (often known as " Ladyboy s") in the Philippines, Raquela dreams of marrying a heterosexual man from the West. She spends much of her time on the internet looking for men who can come and rescue her. They promise to come, but time after time Raquela gets stood up at the airport.
Her life changes when, by luck, she lands a job as a webcam host on a transsexual porn site. The owner of the website, Michael, a "Ladyboy specialist" who runs his business from New York, promises to help Raquela. Through the internet, Raquela makes many interesting friends. Among them is Valery, the only "out of the closet" transsexual in Iceland, who is looking for someone like herself. Through her friends in the internet world, Raquela eventually gets the opportunity to travel far away on her quest to find the straight man of her dreams.
Director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson's
approach to the film Queen Raquela:
How do you make a film about transsexuals that has not been done in various ways before?
Prior to beginning my research, this is something that I asked myself again and again. There are many fine documentaries about the world of transsexualism, but I have yet to see one that has a good story. Usually, these films concern themselves with the subjects of transition, talk about the physical changes, whether or not they are gay or bisexual, and otherwise attempt to define and categorize.
Therefore I decided to focus on a story that could sum up the beauty and misery of a life of a transsexual. And I found it in The Amazing Truth about Queen Raquela.
There is no easy way to explain what a transsexual is. Transsexuals are a manifestation of the complexity of the world we live in. It's impossible to define them properly, and looking at the world they live in, it's not a pretty picture. Their main drive is to become a woman, but many don't want to take the final step of transformative surgery. This drive to become and to be accepted as a woman is what enslaves them deeper into a woman's world more than any of God's female creatures.
Fighting to be accepted, many transsexuals don't want to use condoms to please the man that they are with. They have to spend about three times longer in front of the mirror than ordinary women, and they are much heavier slaves of fashion than any girl could be. What sums up the impossibility of their existence is that they usually seem to want straight men, so they can feel like a real woman. This drive for acceptance is what makes them breathe, and it is indeed what often kills them.
Getting older is particularly bad for transsexuals, because they realize that fewer men will want them when they're old. So, they choose to leave the stage willingly, because, again, their whole life is based on "getting the man". Because they have very little chance of a good job when they get older.
They don't get into the best schools because of their being transsexual, and therefore don't get the best jobs. That's why all their focus goes into one thing, getting a man and family that will love them, hug and hold them, and possibly adopt children with them.
I have not heard of any transsexual who has succeeded in this task, and for sure, it is not an easy task.
The amazing thing is, they all seem to realize that they are living a lie, but they treat it as a sort of truth, to make their life make sense. They become a woman, but with a butterfly effect, staying in their cocoon until living a short blissful life, but doing so as beautifully as they possibly can.
This rainbow of reality I was fortunate to find in my main subject, Raquela, who wants to take on a perilous journey to find her man, knowing all the while that she will not find him.
YouTube Player with Nine Queen Raquela Videos
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Read more about the film Queen Raquela
Queen Raquela production stills
Interview with Raquela
Videos
First movie trailer for Queen Raquela in QuickTime format
Second movie trailer for Queen Raquela in QuickTime format
American movie trailer for Queen Raquela , widescreen!
The Making of Queen Raquela
The Berlin premiere of Queen Raquela in QuickTime format
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Queen Raquela director Olaf de Fleur
Production Company
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