Shot in moody monochrome and steeped in the erotics of oppression, Daniela Thomas’s film joins the small canon of great movies taking slavery as a subject
Date/Time: Oct 3 2017, 9:15 pm to 11:15 pm
Vancouver, Vancouver Playhouse | Event calendarCost: $15.00
Find tickets: here
In 2017, VIFF continues to expand the frame to create multi-experiential streams that include some of the best cinema from around the world fused with related talks and events in a unique Film+ model. VIFF audiences and creators have a chance to discover, discuss and connect more at one of North America's most accessible festivals, in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet.
With more than 300 films from 73 countries, VIFF 2016 audiences were treated to narratives and documentaries that entertained, informed, inspired and left viewers in awe of the filmmaking talent that exists here in Canada and from creators around the world. Look here for a list of
2016 award-winners. We can't wait to see what the 2017 Festival line-up!
Vazante
Panorama | Contemporary World Cinema
Shot in moody monochrome and steeped in the erotics of oppression, Daniela Thomas’s film joins the small canon of great movies taking slavery as a subject. Telling the story of Antonio (Adriano Carvalho), a slave owner in 19th-century Brazil, Thomas gives life to the dark past; her film is as compelling as it is disturbing. His wife having recently died in childbirth, Antonio takes a child bride, Beatriz (Luana Nastas), but decides to delay consummation until menstruation begins. Meanwhile, there’s slave Feliciana (Jai Baptista) to take as a lover, much as she resents it. Her child (Vinicius Dos Anjos) forms a bond with Beatriz; it’s the mistake of two young innocents, and it helps set the stage for an unsparing climax.
One of the key designers of the Rio Olympics opening ceremony, Thomas sure knows how to stage a scene, but there’s not a whiff of commercial compromise here: the film is resolutely unconventional. For all its strangeness and morbidity, though, it still has the power to connect.
"[T]ransfixing in its formal rigor, impressive craft and striking visual beauty…[a] searing depiction of racial cruelty…[T]here’s never a moment in this starch-free period piece that doesn’t feel fully inhabited or authentic."—David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter
notes should prob include fact that the filmmaker directed the Rio 2016 Olympic Games opening ceremony
More info
The Vancouver International Film Festival 2017 Events