The Girl Who Became a Boy
“The Girl Who Became A Boy” is a film about Burrneshas, the “sworn virgins” of Albania. It is the story of four women who have chosen to live their lives as a man. Each of them has made the decision from a different motivation. The permanent change into a different cultural gender does not rise out of a mere personal or sexual decision. Their transformation is based upon social and economic needs. An Albanian woman can neither be the head of the family, nor take the rightful heritage. Divorced women have no social standing. Even today in Northern Albania many women can’t work in public. In addition, they are not allowed to carry a weapon, so they cannot defend themselves. Women will never be involved into blood feuds, because the blood of a woman does not have the same value as the blood of a man. Not every woman can accept the restriction of personal freedom and decides to become a Burrnesha. In a ceremony in front of the village elders the women place the vow that from now on they live as men and in perpetual virginity. They take an irrevocable decision, however, from now on they have the same rights and obligations as men. Socially fully accepted the women begin to behave like men. They begin to move like men, to speak like men, the think like men until they become what they have decided to be: a man. Over the years, the women are changing physically and mentally. The menstruation stops, the voice gets deeper and the breasts get smaller. Eventually they are externally unrecognizable as a woman. Our documentary accompanies the audience into the world of the sworn virgins. It is a movie about freedom and suppression, about the search of personal happiness, about overcoming biological limits but also on the danger of failing existentially due to their non-reversible life decision.