Kino Lorber has announced the U.S. theatrical release of Private Desert / Deserto Particular, the latest feature from acclaimed Brazilian director Aly Muritiba (Rust, To My Beloved). A triumphant affirmation of queer love at a moment when LGBTQ+ rights are increasingly under threat in Brazil and other parts of the world, the potent drama opens Friday, August 26 at the Quad Cinema in New York City and on Friday, September 9 at the Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles, followed by other select cities nationwide.
Brazil’s official submission to the International Feature category at the 94th Academy Awards®, winner of the BNL People’s Choice Award at the Venice International Film Festival, and an official selection at numerous other international festivals including São Paulo, San Francisco, and OUTShine, Private Desert—anchored by potent performances from Antonio Saboia (Bacurau) and newcomer Pedro Fasanaro, who identifies as non-binary—traverses Brazil’s contrasting regional, cultural, and political landscapes to become a story of love, desire, and resistance.
Deftly cast and with a screenplay by Muritiba and Henrique dos Santos, Private Desert centers Sara and Daniel who, although in a long-distance relationship, comfort one another from within their own, very different life circumstances. Sara is a genderfluid blue-collar worker who lives as her male birth identity Robson by day and her femme identity, Sara, by night, while caring for her religious grandmother in Sobradinho, a small town in the rural northeast of the country. Daniel, who teaches in a police academy in the southern metropolis of Curitiba, has been placed on unpaid leave after a violent incident occurs that’s all over the news. The only thing holding him together is his online romance with Sara, whom he has never met in person. When she suddenly disappears, Daniel drives 2,000 miles across Brazil to find her. He posts Sara’s picture all over town but no one recognizes her, until he receives a mysterious call from someone claiming to know her and asking to meet. What follows is a journey of the heart that will change Sara and Daniel forever.
In the tradition of A Fantastic Woman and Strawberry and Chocolate, the film is both a swooning sun-baked romance and a triumphant affirmation of queer love and humanity at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are dangerously imperiled across the globe and in Brazil in particular, where annual recorded numbers of fatal violence against trans and queer people continues to be the highest of any other country in the world for the twelfth consecutive year.
Boasting lush cinematography by Luis Armando Arteaga (Ixcanul) and a haunting, atmospheric score by Felipe Ayres, the film’s sensitive exploration of Brazil’s current cultural and political landscape unites it with a new generation of queer and allied Brazilian filmmakers commenting on the nation’s historical and contemporary treatment of LGBTQ+ communities and their pursuit for just recognition. Rooted within this context, Private Desert nevertheless speaks to universals of the queer experience with respect and nuance, marking Muritiba as a thoughtful observer and an indispensable storyteller to watch on the international film circuit.
