84' 2019 Brazil director: Aude Chevalier-Beaumel, Marcelo Barbosa cinematography: Aude Chevalier-Beaumel, Marcelo Barbosa editing: Quentin Delaroche production: Santaluz
The film by Aude Chevalier-Beaumel and Marcelo Barbosa opens with a scene showing the burial—in an unmarked grave—of another victim of the transphobia that has claimed numerous victims in Brazil. Accompanied by the residents of a building where homeless transgender people squat illegally, Indianara Siqueira bids a final farewell to her friend. Indianara is a controversial and radical activist who is fighting for the physical survival of an excluded community at a time when Brazil has taken a turn to the extreme right. Removed from the left-wing PSOL party on the basis of serious allegations, Indianara is still an icon in the trans movement and even in the LGBT wing of PSOL itself. When the residents of Indianara’s shelter are about to be evicted, she braces herself for one final battle. Her documentary portrait is a masterpiece of film art in a purely observational style. We see Indianara in her turbulent public and private life—in her relationship with her husband. It’s rare in a documentary that we see female protagonists with the sort of intense on-screen presence that, as a rule, only great movie stars can boast of.
