CHARCOAL
Brazil, Argentina
Production company: Superfilms
World premiere: Toronto International Film Festival
Participants
Somewhere in the Brazilian countryside, married couple Irene (Maeve Jinkings) and Jairo (Rômulo Braga) and their nine-year-old son Jean (Jean Costa) live with Irene’s bedridden father in a precarious, stagnant situation, barely making ends meet out of their small charcoal production business.
Their strained lives change when a shady nurse offers them a diabolical deal: put their elder to rest and host instead an Argentinian drug kingpin who urgently needs a place to hide. Hesitant at first, Irene agrees and opens her house to the drug lord in distress, who expected a dramatically different experience for his forced exile. This surreal change in the family dynamic undoes their ties in unexpected ways. Their new-found income allows them to regain some power over their overwhelming realities, but actual hope will prove much harder for them to find.
CREDITS
Director: Carolina Markowicz
Writers: Carolina Markowicz
Editor: Lautaro Colace
Producer: Zita Carvalhosa
Co-Producers: Karen Castanho, Alejandro Israel
Cast: Maeve Jinkings, Cesar Bordon, Jean Costa, Romulo Braga, Camila Mardila, Pedro Wagner, Aline Marta
International sales: Urban Sales
Consultant editor