Malaysia's First Gay Romance Movie

Dubbed Malaysia's first-ever gay film, …Dalam Botol hits theaters in February and tells the story of a gay man who undergoes gender reassignment survey because he thinks his boyfriend will prefer it, but the relationship ends up cratering, and (he) starts hating his now-female body. Screened this week for bloggers and critics, the Malay-language flick (which translates to …In A Bottle) reportedly drew applause. But keep in mind: The country's film board only recently starting approving movies with gay themes, and only those that do not condone homosexuality. So they were cheering a film that, even in its description, sounds pretty morbid.

 

But producer and writer Raja Azmi Raja Sulaiman (pictured center, with the stars) says her film, directed by the actor Khir Rahman, isn't anti-gay. Just anti-trans. Yes, really.

The film, which cost $320,000 to make and is based on a friend who had a sex change in Thailand some 25 years ago and came to regret it, is not "an anti-gay movie," she says. "I believe it's not wrong to be gay, but it's wrong to have a sex change. … It is just a simple love story between a man and a man, and a woman and a man."

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