The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

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Raquela, who is transsexual, dreams of being with a heterosexual man from a western country. Raquela lives in the Philippines and works as a prostitute. She spends her spare time surfing the internet for suitable candidates. Yet time and again, her hopes of being carried off into a rosy future in the arms of a strong hero are shattered. But then, when Raquela lands a job working in front of a webcam for a pornographic website, things begin to look up a little. Michael, the New York based publisher of the website, promises to help her get the visa she needs to get away. Not long after this, Raquela meets Valerie – Iceland’s only transsexual – on the internet. Valerie is looking for a transsexual girlfriend. Before long, with Valerie’s help, Raquela finds herself in Iceland. Shortly afterwards, Michael gets in touch and invites her to a rendezvous in Paris. Will Raquela’s dreams finally come true and will Michael turn out to be her Prince Charming?
Director Olaf de Fleur Johannesson: “I want to show the courage the Ladyboys need merely to face their existence as well as allowing the audience to experience their lives of social rejection, poverty, homosexuality and cross-dressing in the predominantly conservative Catholic society in the Philippines. QUEEN RAQUELA is a film about human beings living in a surreal dimension of our world.“

details

  • Runtime

    80 min
  • Country

    Iceland
  • Year of Presentation

    2008
  • Year of Production

    2008
  • Director

    Olaf de Fleur Johannesson
  • Cast

    Raquela Rios, Stefan Schaefer, Brax Villa, Olivia Galudo, Valerie Grand Einarsson, May Rosaria, Markus Kalberer, Alexis Yap
  • Production Company

    Poppoli Pictures
  • Berlinale Section

    Panorama
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film
  • Teddy Award Winner

    Best Feature Film

Biography Olaf de Fleur Johannesson

Olaf de Fleur studied physics in Reykjavik, graduating in 1995. Since then he has participated in numerous film projects, including both feature and documentary films. After working for two years for a production company, focusing primarily on TV documentaries, he founded the independent production company Poppoli Pictures. Headed by Johannesson as director and producer, the team created Blindsker that won the "Best Documentary" in the Icelandic Film Awards 2004 and Africa United that won the same prize in 2005.

He was nominated as the best Icelandic Filmmaker in 2005 and 2006 at cultural DV (newspaper) awards and best director in 2005 at the Icelandic Film Awards. Selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2003 and 2004.

Olaf and his team have finished filming Act Normal, a documentary following an English Buddhist monk who decides to disrobe and get married, shot in Iceland and Thailand between 1995-2006. Johannesson is currently working on The Amazing Truth about Queen Raqauela, a feature produced by his own company, Poppoli Pictures, with Nimbus Films (dk) Blueeyes Productions (is). The film tells the story of a naïve, but street smart Filipino ladyboy - a career prostitute who decides to travel to Paris to find love and acceptance, but ends up working at a fish factory in Iceland. After that Olaf is preparing for the Icelandic feature "The Higher Force" in January 2007 along with developing the feature "Diary of a Circledrawer" with Screenwriter Stefan Schaefer for filming in early 2008.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Stefan Reynisson