Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #108. Carolina Markowicz’s Pedagio

Published on January 12, 2023

Pedagio

Brazilian filmmaker Carolina Markowicz surprised us last year when she pulled out an entire other feature film rabbit from her hat. Charcoal became her feature film debut (it preemed in TIFF’s Platform, San Sebastian’s Horizontes Latinos) and her sophomore film is poised to launch this year making for an intense back to back years of premieres. Pedagio (Toll) went into production in November of ’21 – re-teaming the filmmaker with actress Maeve Jinkings and Bionica Filmes’ producer Karen Castanho. Luis Armando Arteaga (Private Desert) is the cinematographer.

Gist: Suellen (Maeve Jinkings) is a toll booth attendant who starts using her job to help a gang of thieves steal watches from people driving to the coast. But only for a noble cause: to send her son to an expensive gay conversion workshop.

Release Date/Prediction: We see this as a possible Directors’ Fortnight selection.

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).