Die Beautiful

Jun Robles Lana's 2016 Filipino film is about a transgender woman who dies at the moment she is crowned in a beauty pageant. Trisha's last wish is to be made up as a different celebrity on each night of her wake, and her friend Barbs tries to carry it out while her conservative father wants to bury her as a man. The film runs the present in the funeral parlour alongside flashbacks through her life: the break with her family, the pageants, her relationships and the girl she adopted. The account moves quickly between humour and grief and shows the daily life of transgender women in the Philippines in detail. Paolo Ballesteros uses his skill with makeup for the role and won best actor in Tokyo. Who it's for: viewers who like queer drama and Filipino cinema. Who it's not for: anyone who would rather not approach death and rejection by family.