Pascale Ourbih
Pascale Ourbih

Pascale Ourbih was born in El-Biar, Algiers, Pascale Ourbihwhere she began studies in pharmacy. She arrived in France at 17 years of age, a young transsexual without papers. Pascale became a waitress and took courses in theatre before taking part in fashion shows and as a photographers model working for the Marilyn Gautier model agency. At age 30 Pascale is pre-op, lives full time as a woman and for now intends to stay that way. She has been a consultant in psychology for ten years, and her hobby is astrology.

"When you meet somebody, it is not your biological gender which they see. It is your social identity, that of man or woman."

Pascale Ourbih

Pascale is very active in an AIDS prevention and transgendered rights association PASTT [Prévention Action Santé Travail Transgenres], where she is vice-president. Pascale never considered it necessary to have GRS to live as a woman. This belief was come out in interviews she has given while representing PASTT

"For me, the operation was a secondary question. I felt the operation was a sacrifice, which arrives sometimes for some who cross the line for a better social recognition and can regret it."

Pascale Ourbih

It was through PASTT that she first met Pierre-Alain Meier, director of the film Thelma. The president of PASTT asked Pascale to accompany the girls who were going to the casting call.

"I read the script and I liked that a subject as delicate as Thelma is presented with dignity, humanity and had a very positive message very. Even with her difference, Thelma existed as everyone else does."

Pascale Ourbih

She had expressed her enthusiasm for the part with Pierre-Alain Meier. Three days after the casting he phoned to say she had the title role in Thelma.

 

Thelma  • 2001

Pascale plays Thelma in a film by Pierre-Alain Meier. Thelma a beautiful, 30-year-old woman who was previously a man named Louis. Since becoming a woman, Thelma can at last express her hypersensitivity.

It is hard to say whether or not she puts on airs, but her mood swings are so sincere that people like her. You could say that she exaggerates, as if she wanted to convince herself that she really is a woman. But that is the way she is. In order to make her imaginary world real, a world where her urges are the only truth, Thelma needs a man. Only a man can reassure her, tell her she made the right choice and prove to her that she is a desirable woman. That is why she does not hesitate to open up to Vincent (played by Laurent Schilling) when her lover leaves her, even if she must hide a part of the truth about herself to keep him. Thelma does not lie with premeditation, but by omission. She keeps reinventing her life, and for her, lying is as necessary as breathing.

Once she is in Greece, Thelma's past as a man reappears when she sees Eleni, the daughter she had with Fenia (played by Nathalia Capo d'Istria). At the last minute, Thelma panics and wants to run away, but Vincent encourages her to confront her past. Thelma is torn between her need to be a woman and the need to be a father to her child.

 

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