For their feature debut collaboration, Brazilian filmmakers Nara Normande and Tião returned to the heart of Guaxuma, the beachside setting in Alagoas, for their film Heartless (Sem Coração). This region, one of Brazil’s most impoverished states, is a microcosm that blends elements of violence and beauty, reality and fantasy. It was also the very location where they created the universe in their award-winning short film, bearing the same title, almost a decade ago. However, what lured them back to this place were its people.
This portrait of youth was selected for the 2023 Venice Film Festival’s Orizzonti section. I had the opportunity to sit down with both filmmakers where we discussed how they developed the different characters including the titular Heartless (played by Eduarda Samara), how they embedded various working themes in the overall text and touched upon their working methodology.
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).
