FeFi NOW!
The films will be available for free online streaming from 23rd till 28th of April 2024.
Ash Wednesday (Quarta-Feira)
Bárbara Santos, João Pedro Prado / Germany, 2023 / 30 min
with Uriara Maciel, Ronni Maciel, Jefferson Preto, João Eduardo Albertini
It is the last day of the big carnival parade in Rio de Janeiro. Demétria, a single mother, is waiting for her daughter Cora in a favela. But instead of Cora, various men arrive: a priest, the governor and a policeman. A brutal police raid is underway, allegedly because of drug dealing. The police contemptuously call the inhabitants of the neighbourhood “favelados” and “slumdogs” and the military shoots even at unarmed children. Meanwhile, Demétria and the women around her desperately try to save their daughters and sons. Structural racism and social conflicts that have been smouldering in Brazil for decades are at the heart of this all-singing, all-dancing musical short that is brought to life with the help of rhythmic drumming and other Brazilian sounds. Directors João Pedro Prado and Bárbara Santos recreated an authentic favela setting for their drama filmed at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf which features top-notch performances from their cast.
Photo: The copyright is © Kleber Nascimento / Schuldenberg Films
Barbara Santos
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1963. The writer, theatre director, actor and feminist anti-racist activist is artistic coordinator of the Kuringa theatre workshop in Berlin and founder of the Ma(g)dalena International Network: Feminist Theatre of the Oppressed which comprises groups in Latin America, Africa and Europe. She most recently appeared as an actor in The Invisible Life of Eurídice Gusmão by Karim Aïnouz which won the Grand Prix of Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2019. Ash Wednesday is her debut film as a director.
João Pedro Prado
Born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1994, he studied audiovisual media at the city’s university, philosophy and film studies at Freie Universität Berlin and is currently taking a master’s degree in directing at the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. His short documentary Oh, wie frei ist Panama? about a Covid-misinformation-spreading influencer screened at several festivals in Germany, France and Switzerland in 2022. Ash Wednesday is his debut feature. He is currently working on his graduation film.
Lucía Reinoso Flores / Guatemala, 2021 / 14 min
She walked with a rifle over her shoulder. She gave birth and buried her daughter in the jungle. She is a grandmother and a former guerrilla combatant from Guatemala. She is comrade Fabiana.
Thirty-six years of internal armed conflict and 24 years since the signing of the peace accords in Guatemala. Women, and especially indigenous women, have mostly been portrayed as victims, as those disappeared and murdered, as the widows and as those who search for their loved ones missing in the war. Few women have been presented as active protagonists of the armed struggle. What happened to the women that took up arms? Who are they today? The women that participated in the resistance and continue to resist oblivion as well as the pain of remembering. Fabiana cannot represent all women fighters who survived the war, as they each have their own unique stories, but her testimony could serve as a new beginning for these women to start being named.
Lucía Reinoso Flores (Guatemala, 1986)
She has studies in communication and television production and experience working in that field. She worked as a fixer/stringer for Sveriges Radio (Swedish National Radio), Dagens Nyheter in Sweden, the International Women’s Media Foundation and National Public Radio in the United States. She is co-founder of Agencia Ocote and the Observatory Against Street Harassment Guatemala.
She was selected as a participant in the first film creation laboratory by women for women of the Film Festival Made by Women of Guatemala. Her short film “La Compañera Fabiana” (https://vimeo.com/670996728/2b09ee3a26) has been selected in the official exhibition of the Guadalajara Film Festival in 2021, it was a finalist in the short documentary category of the International Film Festival in Central America Icarus 2022, and the Boden International Film Festival 2022 in Sweden. Her work has been featured at festivals such as the Atlanta Women’s Film Festival and the KIIFF Kurdistan International Independent Film Festival.
Outside of the short documentary “Somos el Fuego” under the direction of Mónica Wise and Victoria Bouloubasis, in co-production with Agencia Ocote, around the fire of the Virgen de la Asunción Safe Home in Guatemala, a project that won the 2022 Gabo Award in the coverage category . During the year 2022 she was part of the Incubator workshop of the Documentary Chair for the development of projects of the International School of Film and TV in Cuba.
She has been a second assistant director and worked on various fiction feature films, stories such as “Marte al anochecer” by director Edgar Sajcabún (Guatemala, 2024), “México 86” by director César Díaz (Guatemala, Mexico, Belgium, 2023) and “Cordillera de fuego” by director Jayro Bustamante (Guatemala, 2022), among others.
Maja Prettner
Full-length documentary / 98′ 15” / 2023 / Slovenia
The film Priest follows for many years the evangelical priest Jane, who decides to leave the priesthood vocation. In doing so, however, she has to face the gravity of additional challenges – from childhood sexual abuse and the opening of old wounds to solving complex family relationships.
The movie Duhovnica, director Maja Prettner will be roled as part of FeFi festival in Intimni kino (GT22, Maribor) on Wednesday, April 24th 2024 at 20h. Online streaming is not available.