Tonia, a veteran of Lisbon’s drag shows, faces competition from younger artists that threatens her star status. Under pressure from her young boyfriend Rosário to assume her female identity, and get gender reassignment surgery, Tonia struggles against her deeply-held religious convictions.

With echoes of Fassbinder, Godard and Almodóvar, João Pedro Rodrigues’s tragicomic melodrama of a Lisbon drag queen is redolent with color and desire. One of Portugal’s great filmmakers and a powerful force in new queer cinema, Rodrigues jubilantly plays with baroque theatrics and spiritual themes.