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Genre: Coming of Age
 
112 pages/ Intended running time: 100 minutes
 
Set in a privileged foreigner's society in l970's Tokyo, DIANA is the story of Felicia Martinez who, convinced at l2 years old that men are the superior sex, wants fiercely to be a boy. After seeing a cheesy film version of "The Picture of Dorian Grey," Felicia invents her ideal man "Christian Grey" and convinces herself that she will turn into him. She sets up a shrine to him and prays daily for her Grand Transformation.
 
Enter into the all girls' International Catholic school that Felicia attends new student DIANA. Diana's courage and brazenness win Felicia's admiration, up to now reserved only for the likes of Napoleon Bonaparte, Oscar Wilde, and Clint Eastwood. With Diana, Felicia has her first sexual experience; the two enact stories they derive from Japanese comics, most of which are sado-masochistic in nature. As their relationship intensifies, disconcerting aspects of Diana's character unfold: she blocks out truth when it suits her, assumes a flirtatious Daddy's Little Girl manner around her father with whom she has an unnaturally close relationship; in fact, Diana virtually becomes a different person around all members of the opposite sex. What happens to the girls after they are caught by Diana's father in one of their sex games - how each turns out - is the stuff of the last act.
 
Gender, misogyny, the beauty and power of sexual awakening, the loneliness of the foreigner in a land particularly known for its xenophobia, the difficulty of being true to one's self and the price that is paid if one fails: these are themes that are addressed in DIANA, all set within the culturally schizophrenic, economically rapacious, frenzied world of l970's Tokyo which plays as much a part in the film as Felicia and Diana. DIANA delivers a highly unique, edgy, humorous and deep experience of a world that is at the same time exotic and familiar, singular and universal.
 
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