Raquela is a poor ladyboy prostitute who dreams of escaping to Paris to find her knight on the Champs Elysées to marry and have a family. Being a Filipino she has little chance of getting a VISA, needing someone from the west to be responsible for her application. When Raquela is discovered by a photographer, she gets a job working as a webcam host on a popular ladyboy website. Within six weeks she becomes the first Filipino pornstar, earning 10 times the average salary in the Philippines. Wanting to escape, she tries feverishly over the internet to find that special guy and winds up getting stood up month after month at the airport. Things change when she meets Valery online, the only ladyboy in Iceland looking for friendship who promises to help Raquela with her VISA so she can take a walk in Paris.

Part fact and part fairytale, Olaf de Fleur’s dazzling docudrama blends gritty vérité and fictional flights of fancy to chronicle this truly transtastic character’s life. Actors trade lines with sex-industry professionals, key moments are recreated with a certain dreamy liberty and you’re never quite sure whether you’re watching reality or fantasy. What’s never in doubt is the sense of empowerment that Raquela—playing herself—brings to every encounter and interaction in which she engages. Winner of this year’s prestigious Teddy Award at the Berlin Film Festival, Queen Raquela is one fierce tranny who’s not a hot mess.