The evening was somber and full of strange surprises, as spectators from many countries including Brazil, the UK, Greece and Ireland discovered the secrets of Santinho in this often overlooked dirty gem of Brazilian cinema. See some of them in the carousel below. The last picture features one of our dirty viewers in front of the freshly-painted mural by Brazilian graffiti artist Derlon Almeida.
The director Matheus Nachtergaele is a renowned Brazilian actor. He played the leading character in The Dog’s Will (Miguel Arraes, 2000), a widely-acclaimed comic and sharp denunciation of religious fanaticism in Brazil. The Dead Girl’s Feast is Nachtergaele’s powerful debut as a filmmaker, which draws religious themes similar to those in Arraes’s film, combined with deeply subversive Hitchcockian elements.
The Dead Girl’s Feast portrays the life in a small riverside town in the depths of the Amazon forest, where locals venerate Santinho (Daniel de Oliveira), a young man who allegedly inherited divine and healing powers from his mother (played by Cassia Kis). Legend has that she obtained such abilities after receiving the blood-stained, ragged dress of a missing girl from the mouth of a dog. The film culminates in the festivities of 20th anniversary of the event, when the dead girl is able to speak through Santinho’s mouth in front of the large admiring crowd. The film was inspired by a similar real event that Nachtergaele witnessed during the making of The Dog’s Will.
Our writer Victor Fraga believes that the film has remarkable similarities with Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960) – click here in order to read his review and find out more.
DMovies once again would like to express its gratitude to the Hayle Gadelha, Fernanda Franco and everyone else at the Embassy. They have been a key partner, helping us to rediscover and divulge thought-provoking Brazilian cinema in the UK and beyond. This week we also held an interview with Brazilian filmmaker Karim Aïnouz, at the Embassy of Brazil. We discussed immigration, sexuality and the impact of conservative politics on cinema in Brazil and elsewhere – this will soon the available on our YouTube channel.
We look forward to the screening of Rat Fever (Cláudio Assis, 2011; click here in order to accede to our review of the film) on July 20th, as well as two more thought-provoking films in August. Their titles and dates are yet to be confirmed, as well as very special guests and a round-table discussion, so stay tuned!
