LUPE
WRITTEN BY CELIA HARRISON, CO-WRITTEN AND CO-DIRECTED BY CHARLES VUOLO & ANDRE PHILLIPS
STARRING: RAFAEL ALBARRAN, CELIA HARRISON, KADEEM HENRY, AND LUCERYS MEDINA
SYNOPSIS: A Cuban immigrant struggles with their transgender identity while searching for their missing sister in New York City's underground sex industry.
WHAT THIS FILM DOES WELL: The acting is stellar, raw, and real, Rafael Albarran is a star and he gives a star performance. This movie is real and raw as well in its presentation which serves as a film that you are never quite sure if it's a fictional narrative or a documentary and that's a really neat trick. It really lends itself to a richness and real emotional connection that films of this ilk try so hard to manufacture and come off distant and awkward. The colors, the use of the streets of New York also provide a lot of that aesthetic, and Volo and Phillips use it to near perfection. There are moments where you get this beautiful French New Wave/silent film beauty that comes from the power of Albarran's understanding of how to lay to a camera and how to be so controlled and precise.
WHY YOU SHOULD CHAMPION THIS FILM: In the end, Lupe is about one person's journey, and its not everybody's journey or experience but you feel so connected to it because of Rafael Albarran's masterful performance and the freedom Charles Vuolo and Andre Phillips' give Albarran and then what they do to enhance it with the lighting and the shot selection. This is a really well done film with a message that needs to not only be heard and seen but resonate with so many who are feeling isolated and trapped in a place they are afraid to leave or be someone else in.
YOU MIGHT LIKE THIS FILM IF YOU LIKED...Trans America, The Skin I Live In, A Fantastic Woman, A Danish Girl
IF YOU MISSED OUR INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTORS CHARLES VUOLO AND ANDRE PHILLIPS, LEAD ACTOR RAFAEL ALBARRAN, AND PRODUCER KERRY MICHELLE YOU CAN SEE IT HERE:
IF YOU MISSED OUR INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTORS CHARLES VUOLO AND ANDRE PHILLIPS, LEAD ACTOR RAFAEL ALBARRAN, AND PRODUCER KERRY MICHELLE YOU CAN SEE IT HERE:
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