VIFF 2011: Gay Asian films explore world of prostitution

Quite a number of queer-interest films at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival hail from Asia as part of the ‘Dragons and Tigers’ program. Since LGBT communities are gaining ground in countries here, we’ll inevitably see more and more media representations of gay life emerge from them.

Prostitution happens to be a common thread in three out of VIFF’s four Asian queer-interest selections this year. The exception is Japan’s Our Future, about a tomboyish girl who is bullied at school for being too masculine. 

In the Filipino thriller Señorita, for example, a transgender surrogate mother and upscale hooker moves to a smalltown where she gets caught up in the politics surrounding an imminent election.

But far from glamorizing the business, making it appear sexy, or sugarcoating things, two of the films keep a particularly fixed eye on the consequences and complications of working in the sex trade.

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via Straight

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