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Specifications
Locations and shooting dates : Lisbon & Tomar - 2 shooting periods february and may 2008 - 10 weeks - 35 mm
Shooting language : PORTUGUESE
Working budget : 1 450 000 €
Acquired financing : 750 000 €
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Statement
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To Die Like a Man is inspired by the real story of a transvestite star on the Lisbon drag scene, who has since passed away, and on personal accounts from other transvestites and transsexuals that I interviewed during the months when I was preparing to write this story. There was, however, never an intention to be faithful to these witness accounts. The writing moulded itself around the demands of a fictional construction in dialogue with the genre codes of musicals, melodrama and tragedy.
The characters of this fiction (as well as the stories and the relationships between them) either excluded themselves or were excluded from certain standards of normality. They reveal a deep desire to be true to themselves, to achieve a balance between what they show and what they feel, which reaches boiling point. And it is at this point that conflict emerges and there is a break with the conventions of what is socially admissible. Symbolically, an eclipse and a swing are the vehicles of passage, of flight, in space and time, to another place, a magical world where they can be free.
I also wanted this story to contribute towards the visibility of another identity, ultimately another way of expressing our humanity.
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Synopsis
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To Die Like a Man is the story of the last winter in the life of Tonia, a veteran transvestite in Lisbon's drag shows. Whilst Tonia battles with the heroin addiction of Rosário, her straight boyfriend, the world around her collapses: the drag show strives to survive, competition from younger artists threatens her star status.
Under pressure from Rosário to assume her female identity, the sex change operation that will transform her into a woman, Tonia struggles against her innermost religious convictions. If, on the one hand, she wants to be the woman that Rosário so desires, on the other, she knows that before God she can never be that woman.
Tonia knows that she's ill. Using the excuse of visiting Rosario's' brother, to take him away from the city and the drugs, they travel to the countryside. Lost, they find themselves in an enchanted forest, a magical world where they come across the enigmatic Maria Bakker, who will reveal to Tonia the meaning of life and the secrets of transfiguration.
Back to the city, something sublime seals this story: on one of the first days of spring, death unites two men who love each other, and together they return to the enchanted forest.
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Contacts
| Production: ROSA FILMES - Largo Maria Isabel Abbom Inglès - n. 26B - 1400-244 Lisboa - PORTUGAL - T : 351 969 513 509 - [email protected] - www.rosafilmes.pt
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