The Needle

Camil is the portrait of a young Puerto Rican transsexual who travels to Ecuador to begin the transition process. The film addresses Camil's aspirations, as well as the twists - challenging and sometimes confusing - that life presents.

After years trying to conceive, Carmelo and his wife learn there’s a problem with Carmelo’s sperm. To escape this humiliation and bruised sense of manhood, Carmelo hastily accepts a work assignment in Puerto Rico, where he can forget his 'problem', at least, for the moment. The assignment, however, brings Carmelo into a strange and surprising world that changes him, and his family, forever.

Brothels are rarely seen as safe or dignifying. Yet, in a red light district of Colombia, a country torn by decades of war, there's a tiny brothel named "Tabaco y Ron," which acts as a shelter and shield for trans sex workers that work there. Through a choral portrait of the trans community that inhabits the brothel, this documentary constructs an intimate vignette of this remarkable space. Located in Santafé, Bogotá, the brothel operates in a zone that concentrates all the miseries of a bloodstained region but is also an oasis for all people desperately fleeing war.