After living in São Paulo for several years, a woman returns to her rural hometown for a happy-ever-after life with her boyfriend and their young child. When he fails to join her, she is left to survive on her own wits and starts creating raffles as a means to generate income. When the prizes build to a having “a night in paradise” with her, she discovers her own independence and seizes her life on her own terms. The rising Brazilian actress Hermila Guedes gives a forceful and captivating performance in what would have been a difficult role for many actresses to pull off. (90 mins., 35mm)
A unique collaboration between two of Brazil’s finest filmmakers, I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You gets inside the head a 35-year-old geologist assigned to travel through the backlands of northeastern Brazil to study possible routes for water lines. An unusually haunting road movie, the geologist is never shown on camera: we only see first-person footage of his travels and hear voice-overs of his thoughts as he recovers from the heartbreak of his wife leaving him. (75 mins., video)
