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The Paper Dolls troupe: Chiqui Diokno, second from right, his brother Georgio, left, Jan Libas and Nits Manalili |
Filipino dolls are dragged onto big screen!
Nurse and drag artist Chiqui
Diokno tells Dan Carrier about his journey from the Philippines to the cinemas of Tel Aviv and on to the wards of the Royal Free Hospital
DURING the day, Chiqui Diokno saves lives. The nurse, who works in Hampstead’s Royal Free Hospital, is a neo-natal specialist and cares for the most fragile of babies.
But while his working life is spent in the Special Care Baby Unit, he has another career: he is one of a five-strong troupe of Filipino drag artists, whose evenings have become the subject of a fascinating documentary that has won a series of awards at film festivals.
The group, called the Paper Dolls, were followed by a film crew when Chiqui and four fellow drag queens worked in Israel.
It was a smash hit six-part series on Israeli television, prompting soul-searching national debates about homophobia, and has since been made into a film. It had its UK premiere at the Kilburn Tricycle last month, and has now been selected for the Camden-based Jewish Film Festival in the autumn.
Chiqui’s story starts back in 2001 when the second Palestinian Intifada meant Israel closed its borders and instead invited 300,000 workers from around the world to the country.
And among those who arrived were five Filipino nurses. Dedicated to their work, during the day they looked after elderly Orthodox Jewish men, including a number of Rabbis. But at night they were transformed into a transvestite troupe working at Tel Aviv’s nightclubs.
Nursing was not always his calling, Chiqui explains.
“My ambition was to be an architect or an engineer,” says Chiqui, now living in Hampstead. “But my mum was a frustrated nurse and wanted me to go into medicine.”
The Philippines have a tradition of training nurses to work abroad – the NHS have held job fairs there to persuade well-qualified staff to come to the West. It provides a boost to the country’s economy, with migrant workers sending wage packets home.
This was a motivation for Chiqui, and his first job was a three-year stint in Saudi Arabia. He had to forego his urges to wear women’s clothing and as a gay man, could not be open about his sexuality.
“I was very homesick,” he recalls. “But I had to stick to it as I was supporting my family.”
After three years, he was offered a job as a nurse in Israel, and it was the start of a journey that would lead to fame as a Paper Doll.
Chiqui settled in Tel Aviv.
“It is an educated place. It is like New York and it was easy enough to fit in,” he says.
But, as the film shows, he faced a problem on his first day as a carer for elderly men. His employers knew he was gay and were unsure if he was “suitable”.
“They said they’d give me a two-day trial,” says Chiqui.
“I stayed for three years. I told them to judge me by my work, not by my appearance, and they eventually did.”
But the film also shows that not everyone was as accepting of Chiqui. He had to face down attitudes towards sexual orientation on a near daily basis. His group, including his younger brother Georgio who is also a cross-dresser, were dogged by issues that set them apart from the society they had come to work in.
There were barriers of language, ethnicity, religion, class, and nationality, all played out in front of a backdrop of Middle East political tension. Forming Paper Dolls offered solidarity. “I met the other Dolls through work,” recalls Chiqui. “It was like being a member of The Supremes.”
The film is littered with interesting imagery. The Philippines is a fervently Catholic country, but here we watch the Dolls study the Talmud with Orthodox Jews. A taxi driver unleashes a bitter tirade against gay men and Asians, and by doing so becomes more preposterous as the abuse pours out. Then the dangers of daily life in Israel comes to the fore: in one scene, a car bomb explodes just metres away from the film crew.
But above all, it is a celebration of the diversity of the human race: the Paper Dolls are viewed as “outsiders” but don’t let it get in the way of the dedication they show in their work as they help a man suffering from Alzheimer’s or patiently care for another with cancer, while still managing to look fabulous on Saturday night.
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