Tender transgendered romance
Mel becomes Miguel in a girl-meets-girl-who-passes-for-a-boy story that has its ups, downs
By Glen Schaefer, The Province August 11, 2011
http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/movie-guide/Tender+transgendered+romance/5239425/story.html Echoes of the 1999 role that won Hilary Swank her first Oscar are all over To Faro (Mein Freund Aus Faro), but Neul's fictional treatment of a trans-gendered romance is more sweet-tempered than that American tragedy.
To Faro, which opens the 23rd annual Vancouver Queer Film Festival tonight (7 p.m., Granville 7) and screens again Aug. 19, takes a more hopeful stance as it straddles the blurred lines of gender identity with the story of Mel (appealing star Anjorka Strechel), a boyish worker in a dead-end job at a catering kitchen. She realizes she is bored with her drab northern German small-town life when she meets a new co-worker from far-off Portugal (Manuel Cortez), and wants to be just like him.
Later the romantically innocent Mel realizes why she's still single when she meets blond teen Jenny (Lucie Hollmann). Jenny mistakes the 20-something Mel for a teenage boy and Mel impulsively plays along, introducing herself as Miguel from Portugal.
