Outsider Pictures’ specialty label Todo Cine Latino has acquired the North American distribution rights to Christina Herrera’s “Etiqueta No Rigurosa” (“No Dress Code Required”). The deal is a dual acquisition along with Strand Releasing, Variety reports.
The documentary feature chronicles the story of Victor and Fernando, beauty professionals in Baja California, Mexico, and their struggle to get married. Although Mexico’s Supreme Court issued multiple rulings saying that marriage restrictions against gay couples are discriminatory, the local mayor of Mexicali and other officials continued to derail their marriage efforts, including calling in a bomb threat as their ceremony was about to begin.
“Through their struggle, they managed to open the eyes of the members of Baja Californian society,” the film’s synopsis reads. “For many of their customers they were a lovely couple, until they decided to marry and become the first gay couple in the state to fight for their rights in a place full of homophobia and inequality,”
“No Dress Code Required” was produced by Sabrina Almandoz at La Cleta Films, the label she founded with Herrera in 2012. Mexican Film Institute Imcine invested in post-production.
“The contemporary era questions if, in effect, Mexicans can enforce the equality of rights established in the Constitution,” Herrera said in a statement. “At this crossroads are members of [Mexico’s] LGBTQ community who desire full recognition of their citizens’ rights and a civil society where sexual difference is still regarded as sin or pathology.”
“No Dress Code Required” will hit the festival circuit in the spring, followed by a U.S. theatrical release in the summer. The film will then be released on digital streaming site Todocinelatino.com.
