PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews João Paulo Miranda Maria, director of the film Memory House.
A conversation with João Paulo Miranda Maria about his new film, Memory House, from the 30th Torino Film Festival. The film explores the racial tensions of modern-day Brazil in his lush, haunting debut feature rooted in Brazilian folklore. In this interview, the filmmaker tells us more about the origins of this story and its cultural backdrop, as well as his experience of working with Cinema Novo icon Antonio Pitanga and more.
Memory House: Cristovam, a black man originally from a rural area in northern Brazil, moves to a city in the south, a rich, former Austrian colony, to work at a dairy farm. He is surrounded by xenophobic, conservative people and feels like a stranger in the community and alone. When he discovers an abandoned stone house full of objects that remind him of his origins, he decides to move into that place, where the memories slowly seem to come to life and push him toward a radical transformation. A magical debut that delves into Brazilian folklore tradition to depict today’s social and cultural tensions.