The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela

here! Films, the theatrical distribution and worldwide sales division of here! Networks, has acquired North American distribution rights to “The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela,” a new film from Icelandic filmmaker Olaf de Fleur. Regent Releasing will distribute the film in select cities this Fall starting with New York and Los Angeles on September 26th.

The film has won multiple awards including the Teddy Award for “Best Feature” at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival, Best International Feature and Showtime Vanguard Awards at the New York LGBT Film Festival and Jury Prize for Special Contributions to Contemporary Cinema at the Cinema City Film Festival. The film has played many LGBT film festivals and was an official entry at the 2008 SXSW and Los Angeles Film Festivals. “ Queen Raquela” was written and directed by Olaf de Fleur and produced by Stefan Schaefer, Arleen Cuevas, Olaf De Fleur and Helgi Sverrisson.

“We are thrilled to be working with such an innovative, emerging talent like Olaf de Fleur,” said Mark Reinhart, West Coast General Manager and EVP, Distribution and Acquisitions, Regent. ‘ Queen Raquela’ is refreshing and inspirational in both content and form and we are excited to bring this festival favorite to a broad U.S. audience this fall.”

Raquela is a transsexual “ladyboy” from the Philippines who dreams of escaping her poor neighborhood in Cebu City for a fairy tale life in Paris. In order to make her dreams come true, she turns from street prostitution toward the more lucrative business - Internet porn. Her success as a porn star brings her new friends, including another ladyboy in Iceland, Valerie, and Michael, the owner of the website Raquela works for. Valerie helps Raquela get as far as Iceland. From there, Michael offers to rendezvous with Raquela in Paris.

“In thinking about North American distributors, here! Films was always at the top of our list,” said producer Stefan Schaefer. “They take on great titles and work tirelessly to release them on numerous platforms. We’re very excited to be working collaboratively with the here!/Regent team in getting this film out to a wide audience,” he added.

Olaf de Fleur was born in a small village in Iceland called Budardaluer and studied physics in Reykjavik. Since then he has participated in numerous film projects, including both feature and documentary films forming his own independent production company, Poppoli Pictures. Headed by de Fleur as director and producer, the team created Blindsker, which won the Best Documentary in the Icelandic Film Awards 2004 and Africa United, which won the same prize in 2005. Olaf de Fleur was nominated as the best Icelandic Filmmaker in 2005 and 2006 at cultural DV (newspaper) Awards and Best Director in 2005 at the Icelandic Film Awards. He was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus in 2002 and 2003. He won the Berlin Film Festival Best Queer Film Award, the “Teddy,” for The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela.