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Poignant and Funny Documentary on Filipino Transvestites |
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| “A plea for – and an example of – tolerance and affection, and it succeeds in showing the individuality and dignity of Sally, Chiqui, Jan, Giorgio and their friends.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times “Tomer Heymann’s gut punch of a documentary takes its Hollywood-ready premise – Filipino trannies care for elderly Israeli Jews! – and shades it with surprising seriousness.” – Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out NY “News from Israel tends to be grim. And so the new film PAPER DOLLS, which tenderly chronicle the lives of five gay Tel Aviv men – undocumented Filipino immigrants who are drag queens by night and health aides by day – is a welcome relief.” – Beth Greenfield, Time Out NY “A tender study. The openly gay Heymann becomes, both hilariously and wistfully, part of a community that possesses in spades what’s missing in his own life – the gift of happiness and living well in unfriendly surroundings.” – Ella Taylor, Village Voice |
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| Throughout the world, struggling people cross borders illegally to find work and make a better life for themselves: Mexicans in the US, Turks in Germany and North Africans in France. But only Israel has a population of illegal Filipinos of indeterminate gender who care for the elderly Orthodox – and for whom they often become substitute children. PAPER DOLLS follows five such men, refugees from families that reject them, who’ve made a home in Tel Aviv, Israel’s most swinging city. Fast friends, they spend their free time on stage, as the drag queen ensemble, Paper Dolls. A multiple-prize winner at the most recent Berlin Film Festival, the film takes a thoughtful, variously humorous and poignant look at people whose very lives redefine conventional notions of gender, family and love. Listen to our podcast of the Q and A with PAPER DOLLS filmmaker TOMER HEYMANN (Recorded September 7, 2006 at Film Forum) [subscribe here] Israel, 2006 • 80 minutes • In Hebrew, English & Tagalog with English Subtitles • Strand ReleasingWith support from the Joan S. Constantiner Fund for Jewish & Holocaust Film. |
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