TO DIE LIKE A MAN

Year: 2009
USA: Strand Releasing
Cast: Fernando Santos, Alexander David, Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida, Chandra Malatitch, Jenny Larrue, Cindy Scrash, Fernando Gomes, Miguel Loureiro, Andre Murraças
Director: JoAo Pedro Rodrigues
Countries: France / Portugal
Language: Portuguese English subtitles)
USA: 133 mins
USA Release Date: 8 April 2011 (Limited Release)

Synopsis

Tonia (Fernando Santos) is a large-than-life drag icon of Lisbon's night life in the late 1980s. At the peak of her career, she meets and falls in love with Rosario (Alexander David), a young soldier who's gone AWOL. Under pressure from Rosario, Tonia begins a series of operations to become a woman but the final step proves much harder than she could have guessed.

Torn between her love for Rosario and her deeply-rooted religious convictions, Tonia looks for distraction in a trip to the countryside with Rosario. Lost along the way, the couple find themselves in an enchanted forest where everything they think they know about life and love is proven wrong.

Part melodrama, part phantasmagorical fairy tale, TO DIE LIKE A MAN is a visual extravaganza.