Vincenzo D’Ambrosi, who calls himself an androgynous boy, is a 24 year old queer artist who performs a European cabaret-style drag at “La Boum” – Milan’s premiere gay club.
Born in Naples where his family live in an apartment over their Tobacco Store in which his mother toils 18 hour days without a break. Then she is expected to run her household.
There is a very close and loving relationship between mother and son, and also his much younger sibling, but D’Ambrosi he couldn’t be his true self if he stayed in his hometown especially as he was expected to help out in the store.
Not only do we see him perform in the Club under his stage name Ambrosia, but the American director Peter Spark intuitively has his camera rolling when Ambrosi is sharing his thoughts on life.
A disarmingly charming man with an impeccable beauty he comments on how his 14 year old brother is going on his first Valentine’s Date where he himself seems totally bereft of any love/relationship connection. As he rambles on at times about life, desire and even ambition he shows a willingness to expose himself completely without any hint of regret.
He seems surprised that he has got away with performing his same routine in the same costumes once a week for the past two years. At one point he compares his couple of hours work with his mother’s schedule which he unconvincingly tells us he envies.
