Helena Albergaria

I'm Still Here

A woman married to a former politician during the 1971 military dictatorship in Brazil is forced to reinvent herself and chart a new course for her family after a violent and arbitrary act.

Damned Saint

Reinaldo's wife is in a vegetative state, bringing him to decide to euthanize her to end her suffering. However, as if by a miracle, she wakes up. Reinaldo did not know it, but he was being filmed at the time. Samuel, a failed pastor, offers Reinaldo — now drowning in medical debt — money to be a preacher, sending the atheist Reinaldo down a strange and unlikely path to become a religious leader.

The Second Mother

After leaving her daughter Jessica in a small town in Pernambuco to be raised by relatives, Val spends the next 13 years working as a nanny to Fabinho in São Paulo. She has financial stability but has to live with the guilt of having not raised Jessica herself. As Fabinho’s university entrance exams approach, Jessica reappears in her life and seems to want to give her mother a second chance. However, Jessica has not been raised to be a servant and her very existence will turn Val’s routine on its head. With precision and humour, the subtle and powerful forces that keep rigid class structures in place and how the youth may just be the ones to shake it all up.

Terrores Urbanos

Seus Bebês

Espera

A brief occurrence at the hospital waiting room.

Don't Call Me Son

Pierre is seventeen and in the middle of puberty. He plays in a band, has sex at parties and secretly tries on women’s clothing and lipstick in front of a mirror. Ever since his father’s death, his mother Aracy has looked after him and his younger sister Jacqueline, spoiling them both. But when he discovers that she stole him from a hospital when he was a new born baby, Pierre’s life changes dramatically. In her new film, director Anna Muylaert explores the mother-child relationship through the eyes of a rebellious son whose whole world unravels overnight.

My Mother is a Cow

Left in her aunt’s care on a family ranch at the edge of the burning Brazilian wetland, 12-year-old Mia is desperate for the touch of her mother’s love. Amidst the volatile natural world and the looming threat of a deadly jaguar, love manifests in unexpected ways.

As Florestas da Noite

Jean encounters a psychic in the early hours of the morning. Sara attends Irene’s wake. Verônica plays a guerrilla fighter in a theater production. In the underworld of a metropolitan city center, fragments of love stories, delusions, and separations flicker throughout the night.

Hard Labor

After her husband loses his job, Helena opens her own grocery store. Soon, increasingly strange events begin to plague her store, making her question her sanity.

Estado da Arte

The Business Women’s Club

Jongo, a renowned photographer, and Candinho, a young and inexperienced journalist, arrive at a decaying country club of São Paulo's high society, run by women involved with the law.

When I Was Alive

After losing his job and the end of his marriage, Júnior returns to his father's house. But that is not his childhood house anymore. His old room has been rented by a young woman and the place feels unwelcome and oppressive. Júnior develops and obsession for his family history, as strange things start happening in the house.

Perfect Endings

Like the perfect ending of a great film - that is the way filmmaker João describes the end of his 10-year relationship with Hugo. Despite breaking up, they remained best friends. However, reentering the dating scene brought a whirlwind of emotions, revealing that reality can’t be controlled like a movie script.

Cyclone

Dayse, a Brazilian playwright known as Cyclone, wants to study in Paris. Having a career in theater is unthinkable for a woman in São Paulo in 1918. But her director doesn’t want her to go, as he would lose his mistress and ghostwriter. When she becomes pregnant by him, her dream starts to fade. An artist’s struggle for self-determination in a patriarchal society, based on the true story of Daisy Pontes and modernist Oswald de Andrade.