Tamara

Tamara (2016/II) was written and directed by Elia K. Schneider. The film is a docudrama about a living person--Tamara Adrian. Adrian made history by being the first transgender person to be a elected to the Venezuelan National Assembly. However, this most recent episode of her life is not the subject of the film. The film is about Tamara's earlier life as a man and then a woman. Tamara was Teo Adrian, a highly successful lawyer and professor of law. He's married with children.

From the outside, Teo's life looks perfect. However, Teo cannot escape the certain feeling that he's a woman in a man's body. The agony of understanding this fact, acting upon it, and facing the results makes up the plot of the movie.

Luis Fernandez portrays Teo/Tamara very well. We can accept him as a handsome man and an attractive woman. Naturally, Tamara faces enormous challenges in a society that is even more macho and paternalistic than our own. Fernandez is a good enough actor to make us understand the challenges, and understand his way of resisting and overcoming them.

We saw this film at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. It was shown as part of ImageOut, the wonderful Rochester LGBT Film Festival. The movie will work well on the small screen. It's a fine movie, and definitely worth seeing.