Raised a boy in East Berlin, Hedwig undergoes a personal transformation in order to emigrate to the U.S., where she reinvents herself as an ‘internationally ignored’ but divinely talented rock diva, inhabiting a ‘beautiful gender of one’.

John Cameron Mitchell, creator and star of the long running off-Broadway rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has adapted his stage hit for the screen. Winner of the Sundance 2001 Audience and Director awards and the 2001 Berlin Teddy Award, this film tells the story of a transsexual would-be rock star. East German teenage boy Hansel agrees to a sex change operation in order to marry an older American man, thus becoming Hedwig. Shortly after their arrival in Kansas, Hedwig’s husband abandons her and she falls in love with confused 17-year-old Tommy, who steals her songs to become a rock superstar. The former soulmates’ paths continue to intersect as the Glam Era-inspired Hedwig rocks her way through the tragic story of her life, singing her soul nightly to audiences at a local restaurant chain. Visual flash and a retro-kitsch sensibility create the campy, underground appeal.