Marco Dutra, Juliana Rojas – As Boas Maneiras (Special Jury Prize) #Locarno70

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas, directors of the film As Boas Maneiras.

Directors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas are back on FRED to talk about their experience in Locarno and to leave their enthusiastic reaction t receiving the Special Jury Prize. Beside being excited for the award, Dutra and Rojas express their joy for how they got to interact with the audience and how good and strongly the film was received by the jury, the press and the people in Locarno.

As Boas Maneiras: for their second joint feature film collaboration, Brazilian directors Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas return to the horror genre they had already explored in 2011’s Trabalhar Cansa, using a similar jump-off point (a woman hiring a maid to help with the housework) only to then go in an unexpected, blood-drenched and thrilling direction with utmost confidence and determination. As Boas Maneiras (Good Manners) is a film whose duality (human vs. monster) is reflected in its twofold structure, before and after a crucial birth, with the split occurring fairly evenly halfway through the 135-minute running time. Adults and children alike give affecting performances as the difficulties of raising a young boy alone merge with the tropes of animalistic horror, specifically the werewolf subgenre. Expertly mixing suggestion and gore, with a laudable use of CGI that wouldn’t feel out of place in a big-budget Hollywood production, Dutra and Rojas deal with coming-of-age themes in a recognizable urban horror environment, showcasing a directorial maturity that fully justifies the award given to them by the Festival’s official jury. Walking the line between verisimilitude and full-blown supernatural madness, the duo sets a specific tone in the opening scenes and takes it all the way to the finish line, never once relenting in the name of “safe” filmmaking. It’s a new take on lycanthropy that is at once vaguely familiar and refreshingly surprising, with a final shot where sadness and exhilaration form a perfect marriage. Wherever they choose to go next, audiences and critics should follow with keen interest.
Max Borg – Pardo Live

For the official page of the winning film on the festival website, click here.