Presented in a world premiere within the International Feature Films Competition at the Visions du Réel Festival, the powerful debut feature film Aurora by the director of Brazilian origin João Vieira Torres, journeys fearlessly between the world of the living and the world of the dead, as the latter whisper cryptic yet poetic phrases in his ear. The film was born out of a dream of the director’s, in which he met his Grandma Aurora, a midwife who brought countless babies into the world and also took care of their mothers. In this dream, the grandmother whom João never knew asks him to find the boys and girls she helped bring forth. The more the film progresses, the more we come to realise that these “children” Aurora speaks of aren’t only flesh and blood human beings, they’re also concepts: the need to break free from a suffocating patriarchal society, the need to express oneself without fear and the need to simply be oneself.

Even though the name of the director’s grandmother evokes the first light of dawn, the film ventures into the shadows to draw out hard-to-speak truths. Vieira Torres left his native Brazil when he was young and travelled to France where he studied at Paris’s École Nationale Supérieure de Arts Décoratifs, but it’s in the heart of the historic region of Sertão in Bahia, a land with vegetation rich in medicinal plants and arid soil, that he tries to reconstruct a “female-focused” story of which he himself is also a part. Over the course of this initiatory journey - which begins in France in a mysterious library-house protected by scores of plants with aerial roots, and then delves into the dark violence inflicted upon the women who came before him, before eventually returning to the light and warmth of a chosen family - the director allows himself to be transported by Aurora’s voice. And it’s her, her story, which lives on in the memories of those who knew her and which becomes a catalyst for a family genealogy marked by menacing grey zones.

What’s striking is the capacity of the film’s different locations to guard repressed energies, which seem to be awaiting the arrival of someone who can free them, even all these years later. Many of the director’s ancestors are trapped in this web of things left unsaid, of softly spoken memories and violence believed to be inevitable: from the woman who suffered repression as a result of her indigenous roots, to the two aunts killed because they were too emancipated, and the cousin rejected by her family because of a pregnancy out of wedlock. Like pearls from the same necklace which the director wears with pride, all of these women are placed centre stage, redeemed from a destiny which they refused to accept. What had always been considered a curse turns out to be the product of a history of violence and patriarchal domination which has been dragged from one generation to the next and which is still incredibly typical of Brazil today. Repression may change its name – slavery, evangelisation, sexism, homophobia – but blind and stubborn violence remains blind and stubborn violence.

Through his film and Aurora’s subtle yet powerful presence, João Vieira Torres carries out his own purification ritual; by getting closer to nature and deconstructing stereotypical attitudes around “blood” family, for example, he strives to impose his own story, which also belongs to those who came before him.

Aurora is a film which isn’t afraid to lose itself in the darker side of memories or face up to ghosts wishing to rediscover their own voices. Through his precise and metaphorical approach, the director successfully lends a voice to the plants, the land, and everything which continues to guard the stories of those whom others have tried to erase. As Aurora whispers to her grandson in a dream: “I no longer have a voice but I’m still talking”.

Aurora was produced by Duas Mariola Filmes (Brazil) in co-production with Primeira Idade (Portugal) and Spectre Productions (France).