"The Journey of Monalisa" - 17th Gainesville Latino Film Festival

Event Start Date: September 14, 2021 6:00 PM
Event End Date: September 21, 2021 9:30 PM

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Gainesville Latino Film Festival
"The Journey of Monalisa"
directed by Nicole Costa
Documentary, English and Spanish with English subtitles
Chile and United States, 2019 

Chilean-born performer and writer Iván Monalisa fully embraces his / her dual selves: scrappy, masculine Iván as well as diva, transvestite sex-worker Monalisa. A reunion with filmmaker Nicole Costa, Iván’s former college classmate, provides the opportunity for a journey through this undocumented transgender immigrant’s daily life of sex, drugs, and poetry—as well as a quest for US legalization. Pragmatic and humorous, Iván Monalisa navigates the gritty underbelly of New York City with charisma and charm.

Nicole Costa intersperses recent scenes of Monalisa’s attempts to get a visa and their first successes as a writer with old VHS footage, snippets of telephone conversations, and extracts from their work: beautiful, raw pieces about life and survival in New York.

More information: http://gainesvillelatinofilmfestival.com/details/the-journey-of-monalisa/