THE SECOND MOTHER

(QUE HORAS ELA VOLTA?)

 Thursday Feb. 1, 2018         4:00  P.M.       MSU Main Library – Green Room (4 West)

For directions, please click HERE.

Genre: Drama, Family, Women, Global Economy, Youth

ABOUT THE FILM

Anna Muylaert/Brazil/2015/112 min

In Portuguese with English subtitles

An excitingly fresh take on some classic themes and ideas, The Second Mother dissects with both impeccable precision and humor such matters as class differences and family. The film centers around Val, a hard- working live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val (stunning performed by Regina Casé) is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica suddenly shows up, the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Born in São Paulo in 1964, Anna Muylaert studied cinema at ECA/ USP where she directed many shorts, among them the awarded The Origin of Babies (winner best film São Paulo Film Festival). She has directed the feature films Durval Discos (2002), winner of the Jury, Critics and Audience awards for Best Film at Festival de Gramado; É Proibido Fumar(2008), winner of the Jury and Critics awards for Best Film at Festival de Brasilia; Collect Call (2013); and The Second Mother (2015) which won the Special Jury Award for Acting at Sundance Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best Film in the Panorama Section at the Berlin Film Festival. The Second Mother was sold to over 30 countries. Don’t Call Me Son is her newest film.

 

A 30 minute discussion of the film will follow the screening hosted by Scott Boehm with Leonora Souza Paula (Residential College in the Arts and Humanities), Saulo Gouveia (Romance and Classical Studies), and Peter Beattie (History).