Memory House

Directed by João Paulo Miranda Maria
Film Movement
2020
94 Minutes
Brazil, France
Portuguese, German
Drama, Black Cinema, Latin American
Not Rated

In this audacious debut feature, João Paulo Miranda Maria conjures a surreal image of the racial and social rifts in modern day Brazil. Cristovam (played by Cinema Novo icon Antônio Pitanga), an Indigenous Black man from the rural North, moves to an industrialized Southern town populated by the descendants of Austrian ex-pats to work in a milk factory. Immediately confronted with their virulent racism, he becomes more and more estranged from the white world. Upon discovering an abandoned house filled with objects reminding him of his origins, Cristovam begins a spiritual and physical metamorphosis...

With dreamlike images steeped in traditional Brazilian folklore from cinematographer Benjamin Echazarreta (Academy Award winner A Fantastic Woman), Memory House is a “a study of what happens to an oppressed minority as decades of abuse chip away at his humanity” and “a timely commentary on integration and colonialism” (Variety).

Director & Cast

  • Director: João Paulo Miranda Maria
  • Starring: Antonio Pitanga
  • Starring: Ana Flavia Cavalcanti
  • Starring: Sam Louwyck
  • Starring: Soren Hellerup

Trailer

Photos

Reviews

  • "Everything from the imagery to the performances and measured pace makes João Paulo Miranda Maria’s Memory House one of the most memorable films of the year."
    Andrew Stover, Film Threat
  • "This dream-like slow-burn drama comes off like a waking nightmare. Maria uses imagery from Brazilian folklore to deploy a haunting interrogation of colonialism’s treacherous legacy. This uncompromising tale of one man’s spiritual reawakening is one of the year’s most ferocious social commentaries."
    Victor Stiff, That Shelf
  • "With its supernatural flourishes and its unsparing take on a Brazil that looks both dystopian and nostalgic in equal measure, Miranda Maria’s debut feature is an impressive calling card. “Memory House” is, above all, a fable about identities lost and cultural artifacts in need of recovery that doubles as a thrilling and foreboding ride designed to rattle audiences at home and abroad with equal verve."
    Manuel Betancourt, Variety
  • "One of the most original works in recent cinema. Memory House... is the definition of vigor in cinema. Through its direction and technical aspects, it establishes João Paulo Miranda Maria as one of the most exciting directors in recent years."
    João Victor Montuori, High On Films
  • "João Paulo Miranda Maria’s first full-length film melds past and present, realism and fantasy, to offer a mesmerising symbolic and political immersion into the Brazilian collective subconscious"
    Fabien Lemercier, Cineuropa
  • "With an exacting and unflinching look at colonialism in modern-day Brazil, João Paulo Miranda Maria’s feature debut is a searing look at the way racism and prejudices are still held today."
    Christopher Cross, Tilt Magazine
  • "Memory House, much like Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Donnelles’s recent Bacarau, makes no secret of its disgust for neocolonialism, capitalism, or fascism, though it’s more skeptical of violent resistance even when exercised in self-defense. Miranda Maria’s film exposes the hopelessness and desperation spawned by a society that drops even the pretense of treating people, black people especially, any better than livestock as soon as they get too old to work. "
    William Repass, Slant Magazine
  • "[B]rilliantly executed and hauntingly shot, the director conceives an acid and hallucinating, nightmarish-style, powerfully provocative critique to an intolerable and poisoned society."
    Roger Costa, Brazilian Press
  • "Rife with magical realist elements, the film is a visual and auditory treasure trove..."
    Kathleen Sachs, Chicago Reader