here! Films Acquires Rights to Festival Favorite 'The Amazin

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here! Films Acquires Rights to Festival Favorite 'The Amazing Truth
About Queen Raquela'
Gay Wired, CA, USA
By | Article Date: 8/31/2008 10:13 AM

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 "-------" 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 businessâ€â€ÂInternet ----. Her
success as a ---- star brings her new friends, including another
------- 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.

For more information on the film, visit www.queenraquela.com
.
Source: Press Release
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