by Adam Ross
With a special spotlight on the films emerging from Brazil, the festival’s program boasts 49 feature films, documentaries, and shorts – many of them Australian premieres.
While the festival offers a robust selection on its online streaming platform; many festivalgoers will relish seeing films in cinemas again!
Festival Director Spiro Economopoulos echoed this sentiment: “To paraphrase Diana Ross, we’re coming back out and we want the world to know. With the world recalibrating, we all find ourselves coming back out. Again.”
Adam Ross checked out the program, and reports back on the opening and closing night premieres that bookend the festival: Brazilian films Private Desert and Uýra: The Rising Forest.
Opening Night Premiere
Private Desert (Directed by Aly Muritiba)
The film centres on Daniel (Antonio Saboia), a member of the Brazilian military police. A violent incident with a young cadet sees Daniel on unpaid leave and under investigation. He soon finds himself filling his days caring for his ailing father Everado (Luthero Aleida). Everado has passed on a rigid view of masculinity to Daniel, and he is struggling to emerge from his father’s shadow. A decline in Everado’s condition leads to desperation, which finds Daniel leaning on his sister Deborah (Cynthia Senek) for help. A glimmer of hope emerges when Daniel finds himself engaged in an online romance. But when the woman, Sara (Pedro Fasanaro), ceases communication, Daniel hits the road, searching for answers.
With Private Desert, director Aly Muritba has made a film filled with stark contrasts. His script (with Henrique Dos Santos) cleverly juxtaposes the lovers and their interpretations of masculinity. Daniel’s desperate situation has made him stoic and isolated, and Saboia’s performance has an unpredictable volatility that adds a tangible sense of suspense to the film. Saboia balances this volatility with a deep sense of longing, and the scenes with Fasanaro have a charged intensity.
The transgender community in Brazil still faces fierce opposition from religious sectors, and Fasanaro’s deeply affecting performance as Sara manages to give a human and intimate fact to the adversity. Fasanaro is an excellent counterpoint to Saboia, and their portrayals are both delicate and resilient.
Cinematographer Luis Armando Arteaga’s visuals commendably mirror the characters’ journey of self-discovery. From sun-bleached landscapes to neon-soaked nightclubs, we feel the heat (in both senses) radiating off the screen. Less successful is Felipe Ayres’ bombastic score that occasionally tips scenes into melodrama. Muritba’s subtle direction is rarely over stylised; he knows that the connection between his leads is the heart of the film, and he never obscures it.
The gentle and surprising dissection of masculinity and duty in Private Desert will prove to be a memorable journey of the heart for those who take it.
Closing Night Premiere
Uýra: The Rising Forest (Directed by Juliana Curi)
Juliana Curi’s startling documentary is a David versus Goliath tale of the highest magnitude. Set in the heavily polluted Brazilian city of Manaus and its peripheral forests, the film follows Emerson, a non-binary ecologist who uses performance art to both heal themselves and their land.
The film contains a series of astonishing performances from Emerson, who, with the help of elaborate costuming, conducts beautiful and haunting pieces of cathartic eco-activism as their alter-ego Uýra.
From rivers of discarded plastic to ancient caverns; Uýra seductively writhes their way through the Amazonian landscape, chanting haunting mantras that give a voice to a land lost to both colonisation and industry.
Emerson is not only concerned with the ecological struggles of Brazil but also the erasure of its indigenous peoples. As the performances garner public interest, Emerson utilises the attention to mount educational workshops. The workshops focus on reconnecting youth to their ancestral roots and teaching them new and potent ways of expression.
Not only a striking visual document, Uýra: The Rising Forest is memorable for its beguiling protagonist. Emerson straddles the worlds of science and art and makes a compelling argument for not only their coexistence, but their intersectionality.
MQFF is on between November 10 – 21, 2022. For all information, head to the website.
