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For their feature debut collaboration, Brazilian filmmakers Nara Normande and Tião returned to the heart of Guaxuma, the beachside setting in Alagoas, for their film Heartless (Sem Coração). This region, one of Brazil’s most impoverished states, is a microcosm that blends elements of violence and beauty, reality and fantasy. It was also the very location where they created the universe in their award-winning short film, bearing the same title, almost a decade ago. However, what lured them back to this place were its people.

This portrait of youth was selected for the 2023 Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. I had the opportunity to sit down with both filmmakers where we discussed how they developed the different characters including the titular Heartless (played by Eduarda Samara), how they embedded various working themes in the overall text and touched upon their working methodology.…...

Paris-based sales agent The Party Film Sales has acquired world rights for “Heartless” (Sem Coração), which has its world premiere in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival.

The feature, directed by Brazilian duo Nara Normande and Tião, is based on their short of the same name, which received the Illy Prize for Best Short at Directors’ Fortnight during the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

The film is set in the summer of 1996 on the north-east coast of Brazil, where Tamara (played by Maya de Vicq) is enjoying her last weeks in the fishing village she lives in before leaving for Brasilia for her studies. One day, she hears about a teenager nicknamed Heartless (played by Eduarda Samara), after a scar she has on her chest. Over the course of the summer, Tamara feels a growing attraction for this mysterious girl.

The directors comment: “Tamara’s journey is inspired by Nara...

A good deal more restrained and nuanced than The Craft and Carrie, Raquel 1:1 takes itself perhaps a little too seriously, presenting a rather straightforward tale of a repressed young woman living in a small town where everything is simple if you have faith. Starting over with her dad Hermes (Emilio de Mello), Raquel (Valentina Herszage) moves across Brazil to an old family home. Once there, Raquel—who considers herself religious even if she doesn’t regularly practice—encounters Laura (Eduarda Samara) and Ana (Priscila Bittencourt), who invite her to be part of the local church. Ana’s mother Elisa (Lianna Matheus) is the local pastor who gives daily, fiery sermons as Ana leads the youth outreach and group activities.

While spying on Laura and Ana swimming, Raquel finds herself drawn to a brick shack in the middle of the woods which becomes central to the story’s supernatural elements...