Interviews

Interview: Carolina Markowicz – Charcoal (Carvão)

Published on November 21, 2022

Pandemic times gifted Brazilian filmmaker Carolina Markowicz with fraternal film twins. Toll would turn out to be her sophomore feature, but she broke out with Charcoal — a film set in rural Brazil features Maeve Jinkings as the matriarch struggles to hold her nuclear family together when everything around her is burning up. Markowicz explores the shifting hierarchy of this one family (with a new visitor) and the community that surrounds it with a generous touch of comedy noir with hot plate of revenge. Just after having its world premiere (in the Platform section) at TIFF in 2022, Charcoal (Carvão) would then splash at Donostia-San Sebastian. I spoke to the filmmaker in Toronto discussing the idea behind setting the world in the land of wood burning, the traits of her character set and how the backdrop inform and inspire Jinkings’ performance.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).