Sales company Split Screen has acquired rights to Eliza Capai’s “The Fabulous Time Machine” ahead of its Berlinale world premiere in Generation KPlus. The documentary, set in the Brazilian hinterland, follows a group of girls whose future greatly differs from the difficult lives their mothers led in the poverty-stricken region.
Split Screen acquired the film’s world rights, excluding Brazil.
Capai first began thinking of making “The Fabulous Time Machine” back in 2013, when she first visited Guaribas. Formerly known as “Brazil’s hunger capital,” the municipality in Piauí was the country’s poorest city, with residents struggling to access basic resources such as clean water and food. Two decades ago, however, President Lula’s first government chose the city as a testing ground for their Fome Zero (“Zero Hunger”) program, which aimed to eradicate hunger in Brazil. Soon after, Guaribas also became a pilot city for yet another successful Lula initiative, Bolsa Família (“Family Bursary”), a program that provided financial aid to poor Brazilian families as long as their children attended school and got vaccinated.
Bolsa Família changed much of Brazil, but even more so Guaribas. During her first visit, Capai met young girls “with plump faces” who were allowed to play freely on the streets, a very different reality from that of their still young mothers. The lives of the preceding generation much more resembled Brazil’s nefarious enslavery past, with women married off young to often violent husbands and struggling to make ends meet in a region where food was scarce and work even scarcer.
Speaking with Variety ahead of the festival, Capai recalls being “deeply moved by the changes that were happening in the community.” “This all happened because of Bolsa Família, because the main condition of the benefit is that children go to school. I was so amazed at seeing how different the lives of these young girls were from those of their still young mothers. I was set on returning to the community and following this process.”
Capai visited Guaribas two times before the shooting of the film, gaining the trust of the community. The director allowed the girls to shoot the intimacy of their homes and play world, while being very aware of her responsibility as a filmmaker with direct access to young subjects. “We spoke at length with the families about the film and what it was going to be about. We felt a great responsibility towards the children, not only physically in the shooting, but also in knowing what to leave out of the film, since children will say whatever comes to mind. It was a lengthy process on set, but also during editing.”
Courtesy of Split Screen
Capai says premiering the film in Berlin was a “personal obsession.” “It was a personal but also political desire because I wanted the film to premiere at a political festival.” The director adds that the premiere will be “powerful,” given that the film’s team will be bringing the young stars of the film to the German capital. “They’ll be travelling internationally for the first time with their mothers. It will be a symbolic moment for these girls whose mothers grew up in misery.”
Split Screen’s Lorena Morin told Variety it first saw the film in September while attending the burgeoning Brasil Cinemundi co-production meeting in Belo Horizonte. “We fell in love with it at first sight. We left the venue with our hearts moved by the magical universe that the girls of Guaribas and Eliza created to let us into their dreams, hopes and longings. Shortly after Dok Leipzig, where the film was again presented, we started working with the team”.
Commenting on Brazilian cinema’s current spectacular international momentum — boosted on Sunday with historical Golden Globe wins for Wagner Moura and “The Secret Agent” — Capai says it is “very special” to be a part of it. “To see films like ‘The Secret Agent,’ ‘The Blue Trail’ and ‘Manas’ talk about the complexities of our country and be praised internationally is very powerful. At the same time, we need much stronger public policies so our audiovisual industry can continue to thrive.”
“The government needs to understand that our sector is an industry bigger than the automotive industry in Brazil. We need constant, stable policies for the audiovisual sector in the country. It is great to see what is happening internationally with our films right now, but I am also concerned with the lack of laws and public policies that ensure that the industry will continue to grow. Brazil should invest in cinema as a tool of cultural sovereignty.”
