Top 150 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2019: #50. The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (A Vida Invisível) – Karim Aïnouz

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao (A Vida Invisível)

It’s been five years since the last narrative feature from Brazil’s Karim Aïnouz, but he’ll finally return in 2019 with the feminist melodrama  A Vida Invisível (The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao). Produced by Rodrigo Teixeira of RT Features (who produced Ainouz’s 2011 film Silver Cliff and apparently an upcoming adaptation of the Geovani Martins novel O Sol na Cabeca), Ainouz’s adaptation of the Martha Batalha novel features Academy Award nominee Fernanda Montenegro (Central Station, 1988), Julia Stockler and Carol Duarte. The film is co-produced by Viola Fugen (Only Lovers Left Alive; Happy as Lazzaro; Foxtrot) and Michael Weber (The Untamed) with cinematography by Helene Louvart (who has a coterie of excellent credits, including Beach Rats, 2017; Pina, 2011; Happy as Lazzaro, 2018). Prior to his directorial career, Ainouz was notably an assistant editor on two seminal pieces from the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s—Todd Hayne’s debut Poison (1991) and Tom Kalin’s debut Swoon (1992). Ainouz’s 2002 debut Madame Satã was also his international breakthrough, premiering in Un Certain Regard at Cannes. His 2006 follow-up Love for Sale went to the Horizons sidebar in Venice, which is where his 2009 I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You, co-directed by Marcelo Gomes, also played. 2011’s Silver Cliff played in the Directors’ Fortnight and 2014’s Future Beach competed in Berlin. In 2018, Ainouz was also in Berlin with the documentary Central Airport.

Gist: Ainouz, adapting with screenwriter and stage director Murilo Hauser, presents a tale of two sisters stretching from 1940s to 1970s Rio de Janeiro and is meant as a critique in how men treat women. Ainouz has cited both Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life and Pasolini’s Mamma Roma as inspirations for the film.

Release Date/Prediction: Production on The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao in May of 2018, with the project going into post-production over the summer. Berlin might be too quick of a turnaround, but we could find Ainouz return to the first time to Cannes since 2011, potentially in Directors’ Fortnight or Un Certain Regard.