A photo of Jennifer Laude, as seen in Call Her Ganda (Unraval Pictures/Breaking Glass Pictures)

This personal, moving, and at times poetic documentary follows Meredith Talusan, a transgender journalist as she reports on the legal battle between the Philippines and the United States in the interest of the murder of a transgender woman by a U.S. Marine. In 2014 in Olongapo, Philippines, Jennifer Laude was found dead in a motel room near the downtown nightclubs frequented by U.S. Marines. Security camera footage shows her leaving a nightclub with Joseph Scott Pemberton. Minutes later, Pemberton discovered that “she had a dick,” according to another Marine, and brutally attacked her and left her unconscious. Laude died of asphyxiation 15 minutes after Pemberton left the room.

Talusan, a Filipina who moved to the United States as a child, returned to the Philippines to investigate the case, reporting to the news outlets VICE and BuzzFeed. Filipino filmmaker PJ Raval follows her as she interviews Laude’s mother, Julita, and Virgie Suarez, the activist attorney who took on Laude’s case against the U.S. government. Raval’s film culls together news footage, archival film, and photos of the U.S.’s imperialist history in the Philippines, as well as Talusan’s hitting-the-pavement reporting to interview other transgender women in Olongapo. Many cannot find jobs and therefore turn to sex work, Laude included, who was in the process of saving money for a trip to Germany to marry her fiancé.

The Philippines have had a longtime arrangement to dock American military ships because of its strategic location in the Pacific. The Visiting Forces Agreement states that while U.S. military personnel are on the islands, they are under United States jurisdiction. Therefore, when any U.S. serviceman is a person of interest in a crime committed in the Philippines, they are to be investigated by such organizations as the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, and the native laws do not apply to them. As we are told by Suarez, many crimes and many deaths have been attributed to American visitors that have not brought to justice.

Pemberton, a white, middle-class 19-year-old from Massachusetts, is painted by his defense team as someone who grew up in an LGBT-friendly environment because his sister is a lesbian. They even imply that someone else might have murdered Laude since Pemberton claims she was still alive when he left the room. They may even have been behind the rumor that Laude’s family sought money in exchange for dropping the case against Pemberton. Once the verdict is handed down by the Filipino judge, that’s when Raval’s film captures imperialism in full effect.

A gripping, real-life David vs. Goliath courtroom battle.