Yesterday I went to see a film called "City of Borders" by Korean/American documentary maker Yun Suh. It was about a bar in Jerusalem, a gay-lesbian bar where people could celebrate their identities without fear.. including Palestinians.
One drag show was of an arab in what I think is typical saudi headdress singing about his love, and who he is really singing to is his arab girlfriend. The male singer is, of course, a woman, and his "girlfriend" a man. Both palestinians, the woman an israeli palestinian and the other from Ramallah, who risked his life to journey to this one bar in perhaps the entire region for people of other sexual and gender orientations to dance together, drink, enjoy eachother and perform. It follows this one palestinian, Boody, who claims to be the first Palestinian drag queen. His stage name is "Haifa". Towards the end of the film, it is revealed how many death threats and problems he has in his community and he eventually flees to the US, where some relatives are living in Connecticut. He eventually finds "the love of his life", a Lebanese American guy, in Cleveland.
I do not feel like going through all of the characters, but there were a few aspects that really stuck out at me.
See: http://www.cityofborders.com/
24 October 2009
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