Suellen needs some money. She is a single mother raising a teenage son on the salary of a toll booth worker in an industrial Brazilian town. Her son’s father is out of the picture, and her live-in boyfriend does nothing but take from what little she has. Her solution to her financial woes is to join a gang of thieves who steal wristwatches from wealthy motorists. With this money, Suellen can pay for the most important thing in her life: her son’s conversion therapy.
Director Carolina Markowicz presents a cinematic study of intolerance and hypocrisy. In a town where confession and prayer relieve you of the sins of infidelity, theft, and judgment, no sin is greater than a boy wearing makeup and learning English so he can lip-sync to his favourite American singers. The narrow-minded Suellen considers the perception of others before her son’s happiness, leading her to make a series of rash decisions that will have fateful consequences for the both of them.
Maeve Jinkings, Kauan Alvarenga, Thomás Aquino, Aline Marta Maia, Isac Graça
Brazil/Portugal
2023
Panorama
In Portuguese with English subtitles
Violence
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
João Macedo, Chica Mendonça
Producer
Karen Castanho, Vega Luís, Urbano, Bianca Villar, Fernando Fraiha, Sandro Aguilar, Carolina Markowicz
Screenwriter
Carolina Markowicz
Cinematography
Luis Armando Arteaga
Editor
Lautaro Colace; Ricardo Saraiva
Production Design
Vicente Saldanha
Original Music
Filipe Derado
Director
Carolina Markowicz
Carolina Markowicz has written and directed six short films selected by more than 300 festivals and is the recipient of many awards. The Orphan premiered in Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight in 2018 and won the Queer Palm. Since 2021, Her debut feature, Charcoal, premiered at Toronto and San Sebastian in 2022.
Filmography: Charcoal (2022)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Plague
At a water polo camp, Ben is plunged into the deep end of toxic peer pressure. Terrified of incurring his campmates’ wrath, he joins them in tormenting a kid whose skin rash has been branded “the plague”. But then he experiences a breakout of his own...
Saturn Return
This fascinating, highly acclaimed movie is a thinly disguised history of 90s indie rockers Los Planetas, a Granada grunge outfit who cited the Velvet Underground as inspiration. It's one of the best rock movies in years.
The Mother and the Bear
Johnny Ma’s film stars Kim Ho-jung as a Korean woman who flies to Winnipeg when her immigrant daughter is hospitalized there. This crowd-pleaser plays up cultural differences to hilarious effect and offers a touching take on mother-daughter tension.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.