The equally poor and exotic hinterland of Brazil has for several years formed a rich source of new feature films. One of the regular elements in these films was Matheus Nachtergaele, who could be seen as an actor in great productions such as City of God (2002) and the Oscar-nominated Central Station (1998), but also in the controversial Tiger-Award winner Bog of Beasts by Claudio de Assis. The Dead Girl’s Feast is Nachtergaele’s exuberant directing début and is set in a remote village near the source of the Amazon River. In the damp heat, people’s capacity to believe in something and to give meaning to the gruesome experience of death seems endless. The homosexual Santinho (played by the Brazilian star Daniel de Oliveira) has been worshipped as a saintly mystic ever since he performed a ‘miracle’ as a boy twenty years ago, following the suicide of his mother and the disappearance of the girl Cecilia. But nobody really knows what the miracle involved. Santinho says he receives messages from the girl, which brings him into conflict with Cecilia’s brother. The villages decides to allow the festive commemoration of the miracle to be sponsored by a brewer, including a performance by the Space Triplets. In the meantime, the motives of the holy Santinho’s father are primarily economic. (GT)
