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
Jurassic Park
Two paleontologists are invited to preview a new Central American theme park by an avuncular entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough). What they encounter is truly a walk on the wild side. Spielberg's jaw dropping adventure movie still kills on the big screen.
Turner & Constable
Filmed as a supplement to a blockbuster exhibition at Tate Britain happening right now, this doc in the popular Exhibition on Screen series allows us to view these competitive, complementary English landscape artists side by side.
The Adventures of Tintin
Could this be Spielberg's most underrated film? It's his only stab at animation, and it moves like Raiders of the Lost Ark on caffeine. The plotting may be antiquarian but the action never lets up. It's delirious stuff, often laugh-out-loud funny.
Ghost Elephants
Everyone's favourite German adventurer, Werner Herzog goes on the hunt for the largest land mammal on the planet, the fabled "ghost elephant" of the Angolan highlands -- that may, or may not, exist.
Miroirs No. 3
Following a car crash that kills her boyfriend, piano student Laura is physically unhurt but emotionally distraught. A local woman takes her in, but she gradually realizes she's in the midst of an eerie, mysterious family situation.
Image: © Schramm Film A4 Kopie