Medusa (2022)
Director: Anita Rocha da Silveira Run Time: 127 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2022
Starring: Bruna Linzmeyer, Inez Viana, Lara Tremouroux, Mari Oliveira, Thiago Fragoso
Country: Brazil
Language: Portuguese
About the film:
Premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. Mari and her friends broadcast their spiritual devotion through pastel pinks and catchy evangelical songs about purity and perfection, but underneath it all they harbor a deep rage. At night, they form a masked vigilante girl gang, prowling the streets in search of sinners who have deviated from the rightful path.
After an attack goes wrong, leaving Mari scarred and unemployed, her view of community, religion, and her peers begin to shift. Nightmares of repressed desires and haunting visions of alluring temptation become undeniable and the urge to scream and release her paralyzing inner demons is more powerful than ever before.
“an electrifying work of art that elevates its already elevated pop influences, a transcendental tableau of the true-life horror of female oppression”
—Michael Talbot-Haynes for Film Threat
About the filmmaker:
Born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Anita Rocha da Silveira studied film at the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio). She’s written, directed, and edited three short films: The Noon Vampire (2008), Handball (2010), and The Living Dead (2012). Her feature debut, Kill Me Please (2015), was screened in the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival and at SXSW in 2016. Her second feature, Medusa (2022), had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes, screened at TIFF, AFI, and the Rio International Film Festival, where it earned awards for best feature, best director, and best supporting actress.
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