Cassandro, The Exotico!

Famed as much for his flamboyant drag and sky-high pompadour as for his show-stopping kicks and flips, legendary lucha libre star Cassandro’s trailblazing ascent as one the industry’s first openly gay wrestlers has resonated internationally for a quarter century. A prize-winning fighter who reinvented a staunchly macho sport, Cassandro exudes resilience of all kinds - from the physical power to leave his opponents KOed, to an ability to revisit past trauma and cope with the scars of a body pushed to its limits. His story - of an underdog and a queer icon, simultaneously fragile and mighty - is ever more evocative as it unfolds on both sides of the Mexican-American border. Award-winning filmmaker Marie Losier captures the moving, at times humorous, and always colorful dualities of this legendary figure with her talent for forging intimacy with a subject, while celebrating his individuality broadly. Melding tender encounters and larger-than-life fight scenes into a stylish whole that reflects the vivid textures and hues of a dazzling life in sport, this stirring feature portrait of lucha libre star Cassandro's waning years in the ring is less a swan song than a meteor shower rendered in Technicolor.