Brazil is having a strong representation at the 38th edition of Outfest, the LGBTQ film festival of Los Angeles, with eight productions—five feature films and three short films—in the lineup that is screening largely online between August 20-30, and featuring over 160 international films.
Participating in the international narrative features competition of the festival are the Brazilian films Valentina by Cássio Pereira dos Santos, Alice Junior by Gil Baroni, and Dry Wind / Vento Seco by Daniel Nolasco, while I Am The Other One / Eu, Um Outro by Silvia Goddinho and Your Mother's Comfort / Aconchego Da Tua Mãe by Adam Golub are participating in the documentary features competition. Additionally the festival is presenting the special program ‘Shorts: Three From Brazil’ featuring MC Jess by Carla Villa-Lobos, Eterea by Pedro Inoue and Tino Monetti, and Offline / Desconexo by Lui Avallos.
Valentina
Pereira dos Santos’ debut feature follows seventeen-year-old Valentina who moves to the countryside of Brazil with her mother to start a fresh new life. To avoid being bullied in her new school, Valentina tries to enroll with her new name and hopes to be private about her gender history. However, she and her mother quickly face dilemmas when the local high school needs a second parental signature for enrollment. Presenting trans actress Thiessa Woinbackk's debut, Valentina is a reflection of the real life hardships that society forces a strong young woman to endure in order to embrace who she is.
Enter the cotton candy-colored and carefree world of teenage YouTube sensation Alice Junior: pulsing to the beat of bright lights and emoji, brazenly queer and Brazilian in the big city, and bursting at the seams with an electric sense of authenticity. But when her father unexpectedly moves the family to the more conservative countryside, where the local high school seems stuck in the stone age, Alice unleashes her truest survival instinct to make it as a trans girl and catch her long-overdue first kiss: by being loud and proud and unapologetically herself. Beyond effortlessly capturing the experience of Generation Z by speaking fluently in its own audiovisual tongue, this coming-of-age gem is a gust of fresh air, and a reminder that even amidst hostile socio-political turmoil, the stories of trans Brazilians still, above all else, radiate life, joy, and infinite possibility.
Alice Junior
In the blissfully erotic tale Dry Wind from Outfest alum and Brazilian filmmaker Daniel Nolasco (Mr. Leather), factory worker Sandro escapes his mundane rural existence via secret trysts with his co-worker Ricardo, and through elaborate sexual fantasies that would make Tom of Finland blush. Though his sex life is in full swing, Sandro shies away from emotional attachment, preferring instead to imagine worlds of anonymity, leather, and unbridled fetish - which Nolasco brings to stunning life in color-drenched widescreen glory. When a new arrival at the factory—a certified hunk who could be straight out of Sandro's dreams—sets his sights on Ricardo, Sandro finds himself brimming with jealousy and fearing exclusion from the kind of romance he wasn't sure he wanted.
In I Am The Other One, Luca Scarpelli, Raul Capistrano, and Thalles Rocha—three Brazilian men of trans experience—invite director Silvia Godinho into their lives for a bold filmmaking experiment. With an enthralling blend of documentary and performance, Godinho’s vibrant, politically-active subjects navigate romantic entanglements, fights with local government bureaucracy, and plans for the future. Godinho allows these men to exist in heightened versions of their realities, and in doing so, crafts a rare and sensitive portrait of their struggle to live authentically.
Your Mother’s Comfort
Your Mother's Comfort follows sex worker, trans activist and political hopeful, Indianara Siqueira as she launches a bid for the city council of Rio de Janeiro against the backdrop of the contentious 2018 Brazilian national elections. The co-founder of Casa Nem, a shelter and resource center for queer and trans people, her vocal advocacy for the marginalized—the unhoused, sex workers, trans women—disrupts politics-as-usual. Further spurred by the brutal assasination of Marielle Franco (Rio’s first Black woman council member and an out lesbian), Siquieira and her comrades occupy abandoned government buildings to create housing as a form of direct action. Outfest alum Adam Golub’s film is a vital chronicle of on-the-ground resistance to the open-throated transphobia and homophobia of the Bolsonaro regime amid the global rise of right wing anti-LGBTQ populism.
In a year that sees Outfest highlighting a treasure trove of dazzling filmmaking from Brazil, the three short-form works featured in the ‘Shorts: Three From Brazil’ program encapsulate the beautiful diversity of queer people boldly expressing themselves in a nation currently waging a battle against ignorance and oppression. The specter of Bolsanaro's right wing agenda looms over each story, but inspiration and joy are in abundant supply in these snapshots of an LGBTQIA+ community defiantly dedicated to existing, living, and loving
