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The Funeral
When the patriarch of a wealthy family dies, an unofficial daughter appears. In Cancel Culture times, decisions must be careful.
With the sudden death of Samuel (75), the dynamics of the Hersz family change completely. At his funeral, an illegitimate daughter shows up, to the surprise of the widow, Ms. Lilly (70) and the two siblings, Mariana (40) and Raul (45). The Herszes are the wealthy owners of a tire industry with a terrible reputation, and the emergence of this new heir, Fran (45) – a masculine lesbian born in the Amazonian region – elicits a calculated reaction: faced with the impossibility of excluding her from the inheritance, she is strategically embraced by the family and takes on an important role in their company. It’s time to look inclusive, and she is the perfect face for the creation of a new product: the green tire. However, the expectations for this indigenous and “organic” sister are soon disappointed: Fran is obsessed with cars, knows everything about tires, couldn’t care less about the microplastics it generates and even has her own auto repair shop in Pará, North of Brazil. She will only engage in this game if it serves her money and power. There is also an ongoing, sometimes tacit, sometimes overt, tension over the father. Who truly knew Samuel? As Fran once said: not leaving a will, sometimes, is leaving a will.
Third-world countries are often exoticised. Less frequently analysed are the behaviours of their elite and its implications in their social chasms. With corrosive humour and to be shot in 16 mm, my idea is to instill rawness to the “nobility” of São Paulo. Now that social movements have become stronger and louder, this elite and corporations are lost on how to position themselves. Curiously, it seems to be less about changing the status quo and more about maintaining an immaculate image to protect business. I ask myself: is it better that these topics are raised, even if in a selfish agenda, then not being raised at all? It’s thorny, but it needs to be discussed. What to expect when a stranger arrives not only claiming but also having the right to part of the patrimony? And when inheritance is not only financial but also emotional? This family represents this contradiction. Personal to themselves, but metaphorical to our times. Sadness is what is logical to feel with Samuel’s passing. But anger and the feeling of loss take over like a storm. We are complicated, tragically funny beings.
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