Death and Life Madalena is the latest offering by prolific Brazilian director Guto Parente, an unsettling work in the positive sense of the term, which charts the trials and tribulations of a film crew grappling with the inevitable surprises which are part and parcel of making a film. Obviously, in Death and Life Madalena, these difficulties are accentuated by the fact that the producer is eight and a half months pregnant and the director who’s supposed to be helming the film suddenly disappears. But the film’s glitzy protagonist, Madalena, doesn’t bat an eyelid, despite the many challenges and the exhausting efforts required to keep morale high: the film will happen and that’s that. Death and Life Madalena has been presented at numerous festivals, including FIDmarseille, the São Paolo International Film Festival and, more recently, at Geneva’s Black Movie Festival.

Pregnant Madalena tries to fight her burning desire to smoke and has to come to terms with the recent death of her father who was a renowned film producer. Keen to fully respect his wishes, Madalena decides to transform a theatre into a make-shift funeral parlour, in his honour. As the young woman accepts the condolences of her father’s highly Fellinian friends and collaborators, a cloud of smoke envelops the bouquets of flowers and the coffin. The person behind this unexpected development is Davi (her partner and the presumed father of her baby) who has accidentally turned on a smoke machine. From the film’s earliest frames, it’s clear that Death and Life Madalena sits outside of the norm with its quirky, liberated and wonderfully cut-throat characters who bend the rules over what a film - and far more - should be

An explosive mix of genres (not limited to the film world), such as soap operas, farce, mockumentary and melodrama, Death and Life Madalena is a liberating movie which turns the world of cinema into a laboratory in which to create hybrid creatures who refuse to bend to the rules. Faced with the difficult task of lending form to Madalena’s father’s project, the crew take advantage of the filming process to create a fantastic and galvanising playground ruled by humour and self-deprecation. This rebellious, wonderfully capricious and tentacular creature is full of references to series B films, like a kind of low-budget Star Wars, but it also nods to iconic yet highly controversial characters such as Klaus Kinski, because as happens too often in film shoots, moments of tension can lead to abusive behaviour which should never be tolerated. In the case of Parente’s film, this tyranny is embodied by one of Madalena’s father’s director-friends who’s hot-tempered and manipulative, a lecherous character who tries to seduce his young collaborators through all possible means. Although the film explicitly condemns these often silent abuses, the ultimate aim of Death and Life Madalena - a powerful film populated by moving, fragile yet determined characters - is to deconstruct gender stereotypes and the rules inherent to filmmaking.

Played sublimely by actress Noá Bonoba, Madalena is a force of nature who’s determined to see the film through, despite the fact she’s about to give birth and money’s yet to materialise. Surrounded by a brilliant, supportive queer community, the protagonist rebels against any form of socially assigned category, whether woman, mother, artist or otherwise.

With Death and Life Madalena, Guto Parente turns cinema into a formidable collective utopia celebrating kindness and solidarity. His film allows us to dream of a world where friendship overcomes violence and uniqueness becomes an instrument for building a fairer and more inclusive society.

Death and Life Madalena was produced by Tardo Filmes (Brazil) and C.R.I.M. (Portugal).