THIS WEEK’S FEATURED FILM PREMIERE: "Vollúpya” (May 23-29)
CLICK IMAGE ABOVE FOR THE FULL MOVIE
Vollúpya
Description
In a post-apocalyptic future, an intergalactic explorer lands at an abandoned museum on a quest to find traces of his long-lost ancestors, and ends up being teleported to the dance floor of a Brazilian queer nightclub in the 1990s.
Runtime: 1 hour, 20 minutes, 58 seconds
Best Viewed: Cinema Presentation, Any Screen
Director Biography - Éri Sarmet, Jocimar Dias Jr.
Éri Sarmet (he/them) is a Brazilian trans non-binary writer and director based in São Paulo. Sarmet has written and directed three short films: Latifúndio (2017), A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here (2021) and Vollúpya (2024, co-directed with Jocimar Dias Jr.). Officially selected in over 80 film festivals, "A Wild Patience" has won 23 awards, including the Special Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2022. Highly commended for the 2022 Iris Prize, the short has been acquired by Criterion Channel and MUBI. Founder of Excesso Filmes, a production company focused on rising queer talents in Brazilian cinema, Sarmet wrote and produced the short "If I'm Here It Is By Mystery", directed by Clari Ribeiro, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2024.
Jocimar Dias Jr. (he/him) - Brazilian queer writer, director, researcher based in Rio de Janeiro. PhD in Cinema Studies at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Dias Jr. directed ESSAY ABOUT MY MOTHER (2014), a short experimental docu-musical film that screened in over 25 national and international film festivals, and won 6 awards. After his latest short film, VOLLÚPYA (2024, co-directed with Éri Sarmet), he's currently developing another short documentary, ÁGAPE FIESTAS, about his own queer memories from childhood; and his first feature film, THE PORTRAIT OF W. M., a documentary based on his PhD dissertation about the life and films of Watson Macedo, a forgotten Brazilian director of the 1950s who was a closeted homosexual.
Director Statement
We first discovered the nightclub Vollúpya during Jocimar Dias Jr's archival image research for Sarmet's previous short, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me Here (2021). We came across captivating photographs featuring LGBTQIA+ people from different ethnicities, ages and backgrounds enjoying themselves in that queer space. Despite our strong connection to Niterói, we were unaware of the club's existence in the city we had lived in for most of our lives. Those images were so thrilling that we had to share those stories with as many people as possible. Vollúpya plays with temporality, sound and image textures to address issues related to Brazilian queer culture and history, its preservation and memory. Queer experiences are often neglected by museums and official archives, excluded from historical narratives. This is why our main character begins his journey in a museum, just to eventually discover that what he seeks lies on the fringes of institutions. With Vollúpya, we wanted to build an alternate queer archive from the margins, thus connecting the past, the present and the future through a blend of sci-fi and found footage material, and creating a film dedicated to honoring the lives of those who fought for an inclusive community long before us.
Credits & Specifications:
Éri Sarmet (Director)
Jocimar Dias Jr. (Writer, Director)
Éri Sarmet (Writer, Executive Producer)
Lorre Motta (Key Cast)
Zélia Duncan (Key Cast)
Hadija Chalupe (Producer)
Clari Ribeiro (Editor)
Wilssa Esser (Director of Photography)
Hadija Chalupe (Executive Producer, Production Design)
Completion Date: May 31, 2024
Production Budget: 12,000 USD
Country of Origin: Brazil
Country of Filming: Brazil
Language: Portuguese
Shooting Format: Digital, 4k
Aspect Ratio: 2:35
