In a near-future Brazil, elderly citizens are forcibly relocated to live out the rest of their days in a senior housing colony once they hit 80. When the age cutoff is suddenly lowered, 77-year-old Tereza (Denise Weinberg) learns that she has just days before she’s to be taken away from her job, home, and family. Desperate to fulfill a lifelong dream of flying in a plane, she resolves to travel through the Amazon — a decision that places her in contact with a lonely riverboat smuggler and a mysterious snail whose “blue drool” has the power to reveal one’s future.
Recalling the 1958 Japanese classic The Ballad of Narayama as well as Chie Hayakawa’s recent Plan 75 (VIFF 2022), the latest from Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro is a timely, incisive treatment of ageism and authoritarianism. Richly conceived, lushly photographed, and filled with mordant humour, the film is a fantastical odyssey not soon forgotten.
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize, Berlinale 2025
Community Partner
Denise Weinberg, Rodrigo Santoro, Miriam Socorrás, Adanilo
Brazil/Mexico/
Chile/Netherlands
2025
In Portuguese with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
Rachel Daisy Ellis, Sandino Saravia Vinay
Screenwriter
Gabriel Mascaro, Tibério Azul
Cinematography
Guillermo Garza
Editor
Sebastían Sepúlveda, Omar Guzmán
Original Music
Memo Guerra
Art Director
Dayse Barreto
Gabriel Mascaro
Gabriel Mascaro, born 1983, is a Brazilian director and screenwriter based in Recife, Brazil. Best known for his films Neon Bull (Venice, 2015), Divine Love (Sundance, 2019) and August Winds (Locarno, 2014), Mascaro’s films have garnered over 50 international awards. Neon Bull was named one of the New York Times’ Top 10 Best Films of 2016, and that same year, Mascaro had a retrospective at the Lincoln Center in New York. His latest film, The Blue Trail, premiered in Competition at Berlinale 2025.
Filmography: Housemaids (2012); August Winds (2014); Neon Bull (2015); Divine Love (2019)
Photo by Guillermo Garza
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Short Cuts
Altman's adaptation of Raymond Carver short stories, Short Cuts weaves between 8 or 9 overlapping storylines and 22 characters. it's a teeming, caustic and compassionate human comedy; a singularly astringent, often cynical view of America and Americana.
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A bona fide classic and arguably the greatest Canadian film of the 90s, Girard's dazzling deconstruction of the biopic gives us the mercurial pianist Glenn Gould as Picasso might have rendered him, a cubist portrait combining multimedia vignettes.
Schindler's List
One of the most acclaimed films of the 90s, Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark is the story of a German industrialist whose conscience is stirred to save his Jewish workers from the camps.
Free event.
Dazed and Confused
The last day of high school in May, 1976: seniors debate party politics while next term's freshmen run the gauntlet of brutal initiation rites, barely comforted by the knowledge that they'll wield the stick one day.
Whispers in the Woods
A luxuriant, healing immersion in nature with ravishing wildlife photography, this is the cinematic equivalent of "forest bathing," a trip deep into the Vosges, France, with photographer Vincent Munier (The Velvet Queen), his father and his son.