Poster Debut: Meet Luana Muniz, the QUEEN OF LAPA

You may not have heard the name Luana Muniz before today, but rest assured the transgender sex worker and activist was deemed a powerhosue for transgender communities across her native Brazil, and most noteably, as filmmakers Carolina Monnerat and Theodore Collatos beautifully illustrate in their latest documentary, Queen of Lapa, a veritable beacon in the Rio de Janeiro neighborhood where the effervescent Muniz established a safe hostel for transgender sex workers to not only reside but thrive through medical services, mentorship and mental health care. 

In his review, Screen Anarchy's own Dustin Chang cites that "Collatos and Monnerat's non-judgmental, fly-on-the-wall approach captures some remarkably intimate moments of their subjects' lives. There is barely any interjections. The filmmakers let their stories come out naturally, as they listen behind the camera."

The filmmakers' direct cinema inspired approach has turned heads and gathered awards across the globe, with prestige bows at the Shefield Doc Fest, Sidewalk Film Festival, and New York's premiere LGBTQIA film festval, New Fest, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. With in-depth coverage from Marie Claire and a glowing endorsement from documentary legend Ondi Timoner (Sundance winning Dig! and We Live in Public) as "one of the strongest and most impactful documentaries I’ve ever seen", Queen of Lapa is next set to screen in Sweden at the Göteborg Film Festival on January 28th & 29th and in San Francisco at SFIndieFest on February 8th & 12th.

As we are clearly big fans of the film here at SA, we celebrate today with the debut of the brand new poster featuring Luana in all her glory.

Check out the poster in detail below, along with a clip from the film and external links.