Writer-director Olaf de Fleur Courtesy of Poppoli Pictures

Underseen amongst my peers at SXSW, Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur's stylish and heartfelt transsexual docudrama, The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela, had already arrived in Austin with a prestigious award tucked into its pantyhose: weeks before, the film won the Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Far from your typical tranny film, Queen Raquela is not about sex-change operations or identity quests, but the touching, dreamlike, quasi-autobiographical tale of Raquela Rios, a transsexual Cebu City prostitute who longs to leave the Philippines, meet a nice straight man and visit Paris. A chance to fulfill her wishes appears within reach, but the trade-off involves a bizarre series of circumstances involving Iceland's only transsexual and further exploitation at the hands of an internet-porn webmaster from New York. Minutes after I attended one of its SXSW screenings, de Fleur phoned me from six hours ahead in Iceland to discuss his "visiomentary," how an unusual Icelandic film found its funding and his filmmaking connection to The Sopranos.

How did you find Raquela, and what inspired you to make a film based on her story?
Well, usually I just decide my film subjects when I travel. I wanted to travel to the Philippines, and I did that. In one of the poor neighborhoods I was walking around, I saw these three Paris Hilton-type girls. They were so out of context in their environment so I just asked, "What's this?" They told me: these are "ladyboys," or transsexuals. I was curious about it. Basically, I didn't know what I was doing; I just thought it was fascinating because they're in a Catholic society. We found Raquela by screening, like, 30 girls. Raquela didn't seem to do drugs; she was very clear in her head, and very creative. The film is based mainly on Raquela's story, but I also met dozens of other girls, and they always had the same experience, which I combined into this story. I just wanted to make one big cautionary tale about these Asian ladyboys.

You call the film a "visiomentary" for its hybridized form of fact and fiction. How much of the film is based on Raquela's real life, compared to what you gleaned from your cultural research?
I would say it's around 50-50, if I put a percentage on it. It was supposed to be a documentary, but the further I went into the world, more and more people didn't want to go on camera. I also watched a lot of films about transsexuals and realized I didn't want to make yet another life-is-so-difficult film about transsexuals. I wanted to make a fairy tale, a little Pinocchio story about a girl that needs to travel the world to see if she can become a real girl, if that's not too poetic for you.