Venezuelan Drama ‘Yo, Imposible’ Is an Intimate Look at a Woman Who Discovers She Was Born Intersex

Machismo, homophobia, and all sorts of backward attitudes about sexuality and gender plague countless Latin American and Latino families. So often, these preconceptions are not born of plain hate, but of shame guided by a false sense of right and wrong. Given the culture, it’s not surprising when loved ones make decisions that only reaffirm or exacerbate this guilt, yet the impact is no less devastating.

Yo, Imposible (Being Impossible) is Venezuelan director Patricia Ortega’s harrowing sophomore feature about a young dressmaker who learns, after her first sexual encounter, that she was born intersex. When Ariel (newcomer Lucía Bedoya) loses her virginity, the saying that the first time hurts the most is somehow still understated. Extreme pain and bleeding takes her to see the longtime family doctor, whom her cancer-ridden mother insists is the only person capable of understanding her “condition.” Meanwhile, at her place of work — an emptied floor of a factory building where several sewing machine stations are bunched together — Ariel tentatively begins a romance with her mother’s replacement, a confident woman of African descent. Read more via Remezcla