Israel closed its borders to Palestinian workers after the rise of the second intifada in 2000, and immediately sought itinerant workers from other countries. Paper Dolls documents a group of pre-op Filipino transexuals who moved to Israel to work as carers for elderly and infirm othodox Jews.

Though friendship networks develop between the Filipino immigrants, the Promised Land offers little promise. Visas are dependent on maintaining employment and so anyone who gets the sack instantly becomes an illegal immigrant, and subject to deportation. Immiration cops patrol the streets. Wages are low, and working arrangments seem to waver somewhere between nurse, quasi-wife and, it is implied, concubine. Trips home are prohibitively expensive and in any case, depend on permission from employers.

During the day, the girls spoon-feed their vegetative charges, take them to the toilet, to the hospital when necessary and out for wheelchair-bound walks. They provide sincere company too, chatting amiably during dinner and taking lengthy phone calls from their employers' relatives with whom they seem to be on extremely familiar first-name terms. Of an evening, they gather and dress in pretty bad drag and perform as a troupe called the Paper Dolls. It seems that few of the group have any kind of professional experience as performers or drag queens, but they seem to have a good tme doing it for themselves.

Tomer Heymann's intelligent documentary crafts a gently sentimental portrait of the flamboyant expats and, surprisingly, a brief look at the director himself.

Heymann seems to be a big-hearted guy who, despite his own admission that he's happy to be alone, wants to push his Paper Dolls into as much happiness as they can find. An ill-fated show at one of Tel Aviv's hottest gay clubs only sees the Paper Dolls leaving the venue with their tails between their legs, but Heymann champions them to the reluctant club owner until they get a headline spot. When one of the Dolls gets deported, Heymann is the sole person to drive to the holding center to offer support and (vain) assistance.