The film should be as brave, cheeky, desperate and hopeful as the protagonists themselves.
REAL GIRLS should give hope, prove that life is still beautiful and show that it pays to stand up for yourself.
From the many women we interviewed, we deliberately selected women with a positive outlook, an energetic attitude and a charismatic demeanour. In our film, we wanted to give trans-women the place to step out of the victim’s corner and to present themselves as courageous women – all these women have a hard life behind them and ahead of them lies surely a stony path still. Even their financial success can not replace the respect which is fundamentally lacking, so they perform a balancing act to enjoy their life in their own way and to the fullest. Many stories they have told us would make you shudder, however their lives are not just about attacks and hostility, but also the many rich and unbelievable experiences and what they make out of them.
There is everything in the world of these five women: grief, pain, loneliness, love, friendship, glamor, poverty, beauty, disgust, admiration and rejection. We follow them through all areas and let them have their say in every moment.
REAL GIRLS rocks along. Our protagonists create a constant balance between adult seriousness and girlish silliness, the film moving at a rapid pace between absolutely ‚real‘ and extremely ‚fake‘ – however remaining authentic in every moment. Being a transgender is more than ‚a woman with a penis‘ and REAL GIRLS tries to understand all facets.
As different as the women are, they are all changeable, sometimes they giggle like little girls with a blush on their faces when a handsome boy winks at them, but the next moment they talk totally uninhibited about anal sex and their sexuality. They show themselves completely unvarnished, serious, cynical, cheeky and enthusiastic.
The difficulties and hostilities of being transgender is similar all over the world, however the desires and hopes are the same. Being filmed in Cambodia, REAL GIRLS acquires an exotic and abstract touch, just as extraordinary as the subject of ‚transgender‘ is for many. Cambodia is a noisy, dirty and crazy country to Western perceptions, this metropolis an absurd and fitting backdrop onto which to the story of these trans-women is juxtaposed. They are tough and amaze through their delicate femininity, naïve mischievousness and shameless silliness. REAL GIRLS is a moving collection of neon-lit, rough and unruly images that highlights this tough honesty.
REAL GIRLS 