Robin Macdonald’s powerful documentary Lola is more than a portrait of a transgender woman’s transition. It is a testimony of endurance, familial love, loss, and the desperate pursuit of a life lived openly and without fear. At the heart of this story is Lola, a young Iranian woman who was born male and forced to flee her homeland to survive as her authentic self. Her journey, captured with compassion and cinematic grace, is not only geographically vast, stretching from Iran to Turkey to Canada, but emotionally seismic, shaking the foundations of identity, belonging, and survival in a world that often insists she should not exist.
The documentary opens with tender reflections from Lola’s younger brother, who recalls being able to tell she was different from the moment she was born. Their family, at least at first, tried to be supportive. Lola’s siblings describe their confusion and concern, especially when her emotions spiraled during adolescence. At just thirteen, weighed down by the pressure of having to perform masculinity and the ostracization that came with her femininity, Lola attempted suicide. It was a moment that nearly broke her, but also served as a turning point, for her, and eventually, her mother. Iran remains a brutally hostile place for LGBTQ+ individuals. Though trans identities are technically recognized, they are often treated as pathologies to be "corrected" rather than expressions of self. Being gay is illegal and punishable by death, and gender-nonconforming people like Lola are often misunderstood, lumped into categories they do not belong to, criminalized, or erased. In Lola, we learn how her mother initially sought help from doctors who treated her daughter’s identity like a disease, prescribing not therapy or affirmation, but superstition, like putting a cactus in her room or buying her a bulldog. Still, amid the absurdity and the pain, Lola persisted.
Her family’s struggle to understand her, particularly her mother’s eventual emotional breakthrough, is one of the most affecting arcs in the film. When Lola finally undergoes gender-affirming surgery in Montreal after two years of hormone therapy in Canada, her mother is not there. Lola wakes up alone in the recovery room, heartbroken. She calls her mother, overwhelmed with loneliness. Her mother cries, too, and for the first time, something clicks. That phone call becomes the moment of true acceptance. Her mother understands, not intellectually, but emotionally, what it means to support her daughter. It’s a beautifully understated moment, but in Lola, it feels like a revolution. Before reaching Canada, Lola must spend nearly three years in Turkey, a liminal space both physically and symbolically. It’s in Turkey where she truly begins to live as herself, shaving, wearing makeup, donning feminine clothes. She meets another trans woman who, like her, had been trying to survive as a gay man in a world that refused to acknowledge her truth. Their bond is strong, immediate, and shared, they experiment with womanhood together for the first time, testing the limits of safety and visibility.
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But visibility comes with risk. While walking the streets dressed as themselves, they are assaulted by men who first flirt with them, and then, upon discovering they are trans, turn violent. A bottle is thrown. The girls run. They are terrified but not surprised. The police are not an option. For trans refugees, danger is everywhere, and protection is nowhere. Even still, Lola’s artistry persists. She continues to collaborate with her sister, a visual artist and photographer, even from exile. Their photos gain traction online, pushing against boundaries of what can be expressed in Iran. But art, too, becomes dangerous. Her sister is arrested. The authorities hunt for Lola, accusing them of devil worship and anti-state propaganda. That she is already in Turkey likely saved her life. One of the documentary’s strongest themes is the dichotomy between exile and liberation. Lola loses her home, her extended family, her language, and a sense of rooted belonging. Yet what she gains, a chance to live, to transition, to be, is priceless. Her arrival in Canada is marked not by fireworks but by tears. “It was like a fairy godmother made all my dreams come true,” she says, weeping with disbelief when she learns she’s been accepted as a refugee.
But dreams aren’t just made. They’re fought for. Canada gives Lola the space to not only continue her transition but to create a life that, for the first time, belongs entirely to her. She makes friends, undergoes surgery, and welcomes her sister for visits. The sister who once tried to “fix” her now builds art with her, learns from her, and defends her. The transformation is mutual and deep. Neither can return to Iran. Their art, their defiance, and Lola’s existence have rendered them exiles. Macdonald’s camera lingers often in moments of quiet: a look across the room, a pause after a painful memory, the slow opening of eyes post-surgery. These are not dramatic in the cinematic sense, but they are tectonic in human terms. They speak to resilience, the kind forged in silence and small moments, where survival itself becomes an act of resistance. Lola is ultimately a portrait of a woman whose existence contradicts everything her country told her she should be.
In telling her story, Robin Macdonald offers viewers a rare and urgent glimpse into the cost of authenticity for someone born in a place where being herself is illegal. But the film is also a celebration. It celebrates courage, family, friendship, and the sheer will to live. It reminds us that trans women like Lola don’t need to be cured. They need to be heard, respected, and free. And Lola, now living openly in Canada, is all of those things, and more. She is proof that a better world is not just necessary. It is possible.
Image credits: YouTube
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