With its candy-coated color palette, Rodina Singh effortlessly blends the visual styles of impressionistic horror — think I Saw the TV Glow and Mandy — and the pages of Blueboy magazine to create a bold fever dream of trans sexuality and desire, and their power to sustain life. 

Diwa (EJ Jallorina) likes to listen. Every night, she escapes the drudgery of her day job and the implicit and explicit transphobia of any aspect of daily life by listening to audio erotica by her favorite underground content creator: Dreamboi (Hello, Stranger's Tony Labrusca). Through his voice, she is able to access lush fantasies of a life defined by sexuality and desire, rather than fear.

When — deep in the one dingy sub-basement bathroom where she won’t be harassed — she stumbles upon Dreamboi in the flesh having sex with a stranger, the line between Diwa’s fantasies and realities starts to blur. Threatened with censorship after receiving not one but two X ratings by the Philippine government’s motion picture review board — just like Lino Brocka’s 1988 masterpiece Macho Dancer, which is screening in a new 4K restoration at Frameline50 — Dreamboi marks the arrival of a major new talent in international and trans cinema.