Interviews

Introducing: Goddess of the Water

20 December 2020

Goddess of the Water

Interviews

Introducing: Goddess of the Water

20 December 2020

João Paulo Miranda Maria brings his Immersive project Goddess of the Water to CineMart 2021 after a successful 2020, in which his debut feature film Memory House was the only Latin American film to be listed on the 2020 Official Selection for Cannes. This came as no surprise to those who had been following the short-film career of the Brazilian director, which took off in 2015 with Command Action after its premiere at The Critics’ Week in Cannes. The following year, his second short, The Girl Dancing with the Devil, received Special Mention from the jury of Cannes’ Official Competition. Ant Killers was selected for the Venice Film Festival in 2017 which gave Miranda Maria the platform to discover a new medium for this latest work, as he explains:

“I thought that for this project, there needed to be another visual language. It all started when we presented my third short film in competition at Venice, and I noticed the Virtual Reality section. When I think about art, I think about different ways to plunge into social issues and perceive them more deeply. This was the perfect way to dive into the lonely world of this boy who wants to be a mermaid.” 

The project follows Weslei, a little boy who dreams of having a female body in opposition to the crude and brutal society he grows up in where the question of gender is taboo. Miranda Maria will collaborate with artist Bia Leite, whose painting of the same name at a censored exhibition in Brazil inspired this work. Together they will create an installation which the audience will explore before putting on their VR headsets for the short 360° live action film. These elements will complement the director’s notion of perception: “There are things that are better to be felt than said. Much more than just to understand a rational narrative, I want my audience to feel it, and that way to gain a better comprehension of the issues” says Miranda Maria.

Joao Paolo Miranda Maria & Justin Pechberty (Producer)

Goddess of the Water

The director will be joined at CineMart by producers Justin Pechberty and Clara Marquardt, who all met at Cannes in 2016 in competition with his second short film. There they started collaborating on his next short film and his next feature film, Bandeira, which is currently in development. “From the beginning”, says Miranda Maria, “I saw them as creative partners, besides producers, stimulating the development of each project.”

Miranda Maria is also grateful to the festival’s Hubert Bals Fund for its contribution to the development of his work, after it provided his first feature film Memory House with its initial financial support in 2017. 

“IFFR is already part of my history for being the first to believe in my first feature film. I'd love to be present especially since I haven’t been before, even with our history! But I understand this whole world situation and we must now create other ways to meet and be united.”

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