Premiere.com – By Aaron Hillis
The Icelandic filmmaker discusses his ‘visiomentary,’ how an unusual Icelandic film found its funding and his cinematic connection to ‘The Sopranos.’
Underseen amongst my peers at SXSW, Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur’s stylish and heartfelt transsexual docudrama, The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, had already arrived in Austin with a prestigious award tucked into its pantyhose: weeks before, the film won the Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Far from your typical tranny film, Queen Raquela is not about sex-change operations or identity quests, but the touching, dreamlike, quasi-autobiographical tale of Raquela Rios, a transsexual Cebu City prostitute who longs to leave the Philippines, meet a nice straight man and visit Paris.