We all know Paolo Ballesteros as a talented makeup artist that we almost forgot that he’s also an actor. That will soon change as his film, Die Beautiful, will compete at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) this year.
The news was announced by director Jun Lana, who posted about it on Instagram. According to him, “Kinikilig kami sa tuwa! (“We’re so happy!”) Our newly finished film Die Beautiful has been selected in the Main Competition of the Tokyo International Film Festival.”
TIFF described the film as:
Trisha, a transgender woman who makes a living as a beauty contestant, is dying. Pleading with her friends for help, she has one last wish – to remain beautiful after death. This moving work, filled with laughs, is the latest effort by Jun Robles Lana.
Ballesteros stars with Christian Bables, Gladys Reyes, and Joel Torre.
Die Beautiful will compete against Michele Placido’s 7 Minutes (Italy), Anna Matison’s After You’re Gone (Russia), Mohsen Abdolvahab’s Being Born (Iran), Reha Erdem’s Big Big World (Turkey), Chris Kraus’s The Bloom of Yesterday (Germany), Adrian Sitaru’s The Fixer (Romania), Daigo Matsui’s Japanese Girls Never Die (Japan), Mei Feng’s Mr. No Problem (China), Mohamed Bourokba (Hamé) and Ekoué Labitey (Ekoué)’s Paris Prestige (France), Hana Jušić’s Quit Staring at My Plate (Croatia), Amanda Kernell’s Sami Blood (Sweden), Roy Szeto’s Shed Skin Papa (China), Marco Dutra’s The Silence of the Sky (Brazil), Kiki Sugino’s Snow Woman (Japan), and Adam Leon’s Tramps (USA).
The Tokyo International Film Festival is one of the biggest film festivals in Asia. According to its website, “TIFF seeks out excellent films from around the world and brings them to Tokyo, where filmmakers and film fans can enjoy them, meet emerging filmmakers, and be inspired.”
Besides Die Beautiful, the TIFF will also screen two other Filipino movies: Lav Diaz’s Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis and Ivan Andrew Payawal’s I America. Hele, which won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, is an “interconnected narrative threads about the Philippine Revolution of 1896-1897 against Spain,” while I America follows “Erica, born to a US soldier and a Filipino mother, [who] plans to get her passport and US visa to meet her father.”
Watch the trailer of Die Beautiful below:
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