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To Die Like a Man

João Pedro Rodrigues

Drama / 118min / 2009

Synopsis

Once upon a time there was a war… In the darkness of the night, a young soldier goes AWOL. Tonia, a veteran transsexual in Lisbon’s drag shows, watches the world around her crumble. The competition from younger artists threatens her star status.

 

Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, the sex change operation that will transform her into a woman, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held 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. And her son, whom she abandoned when he was a child,. Now a deserter, comes looking for her. Tonia discovers that she’s ill. To get away from all her troubles she travels to the countryside with Rosário, on the excuse of visiting his brother. Rosário takes the road of his childhood but will never find the right way.

 

Lost, they find themselves in an enchanted forest, a magical world where they come across the enigmatic Maria Bakker and her friend Paula. And that meeting will turn their world on its head…

Press

The New York Times

The Anguish of Identity

Slant Magazine

To Die Like a Man

Awards

World Premiere

Official Selection -  Un Certain Regard 2009 - 52 nd Festival de Cannes - Cannes, 2009

 

Melhor Longa-Metragem

Queer Film Festival "Mezipatra", Brno e Praga, Czech Republic, 2009

 

Best Feature Film

SPA/RTP, Portugal

Best Feature Film

Cine del Futuro, BAFICI - Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival, Argentina 2010

 

Selected Project by L'Atelier

52º Festival de Cannes, France, 2007

 

Nomineted for Best Actor to Fernando Santos

Prémio Autores SPA/RTP - Portugal, 2010

Cast and Crew

DIRECTOR João Pedro Rodrigues SCRIPT João Pedro Rodrigues, Rui Catalão, Joao Rui Guerra da Mata CAST Fernando Santos, Alexander David, Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida, Jenny Larrue, Cindy Scrash, Chandra Malatitch, Miguel Loureiro, Carloto Cotta, Gonçalo Mendes, Fernando Gomes, André Murraças IMAGE Rui Poças EDITING Rui Mourão, João Pedro Rodrigues CONTINUITY Leonor Noivo FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Paulo Guilherme SECOND ASSISTANT DIRECTORS Pedro Maia, Isabel Martins DECOR ASSISTANT Pedro Rainho WARDROBE Patricia Dória MAKE UP Sandra Pinto FIRST IMAGE ASSISTANT Sandra Meleiro SECOND IMAGE ASSISTANT Helena Marina DIRECT SOUND António Pedro Figueiredo SOUND EDITING Nuno Carvalho MIX Nuno Carvalho, Jean-Pierre Laforce FOLEY Patrick Egreteau PRODUCTION DIRECTORS Sandra Figueiredo, Olivier CapeIli SOUND Nuno Carvalho ART DIRECTOR João Rui Guerra da Mata PLATEAU ASSISTANT Nuno Barbosa  WARDROBE EXECUTION Joaquim Guerreiro, Alda Cabrita WARDROBE ASSISTANT Tânia Franco SPECIAL EFFECTS António Gavinho ASSISTANT EDITOR Filipe Afonso SOUND AND EDITING ASSISTANT Mário Dias SOUND EDITING TRAINEES Henry Nesbitt, André Martins COPRODUCTION Judith Nora PRODCTION Maria João Sigalho

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