Deserto Feliz: a small village in Brazil where 14-year-old Jéssica shares a house with her mother Maria and her stepfather Biu. He regularly abuses his stepdaughter and, as a result, it is not such a large step and maybe even a logical one for Jéssica to sell herself by the filling station, looking for a better life. In the coastal city of Recife, life seems happier: people laugh and dream in the small apartment that pimp mother Dona rents to Jéssica and other girls of the night. They charm tourists in the hope of marrying a rich foreigner. It even looks as if this dream will come true for Jéssica: in the form of Mark, a suave German kid. Paulo Caldas follows Jéssica’s activities with a hand-held camera. The occasionally (literally) shocking images take the viewer along in Jéssica’s life: close to her panting stepfather but also in the arms of the handsome Mark. Recife’s dark nights are juxtaposed with the bright beach. Paulo Caldas already showed the harsh life of Recife in 2001 at the IFFR in the documentary The Little Prince’s Rap. He says he is now using his documentary experience to go looking for the soul of the Brazilian. Caldas tackles the major problem of youth prostitution and sex tourism in Brazil, but Happy Desert, made with the aid of the Hubert Bals Fund, is above all a calm yet rough portrait of a girl who hopes to come across love despite her better judgement.
