MALA MALA: A Be Yourself Movie is a film that knows that, for some Puerto Ricans, identity issues go much deeper than just questions of their proud nation’s place in the world. Filmmakers Dan & Antonio seek to explore other liminal spaces.
Transsexualism and drag defy the binary most accept as their standard, while acting as a channel to express (and inhabit) one’s individuality. Conventions are broken when men apply lashes, wigs, and dresses. Prevailing ideas of gender are turned on their head during the transitional process of a transgendered person. And yet as “other” and both drag and transsexualism may seem to some, they both reflect the universal human need to explore and fulfill. To live life as a trans individual is to embody a lifestyle of possibility and endless creation.
To capture all of this–the relationship between cultural life in one of the only colonized territories still governed by the United States, and the experience of citizens who themselves inhabit deeply dualistic identities, is for us a rare opportunity to capture a beautifully unique community.
We’d love to see this film come into being. Help them out at their Kickstarter, where you can find more information on the project, not to mention brief profiles of the people involved.