Manas

Marcielle is thirteen and lives on Marajó Island. The house is on the riverbank; you travel by boat and the nearest town is far. Her elder sister left a few years ago; nobody will say where she went. Her father works on the river and his returns are unpredictable. Everyone knows what happens in the house and nobody says it. Marcielle follows her sister's trail. There are boats passing on the river and what happens on them is known too. She makes a decision: she will end this order for herself. But how is unclear and there is nobody around her. Marianna Brennand directs and co-wrote the screenplay; it is her first feature. Jamilli Correa plays Marcielle; Fátima Macedo, Rômulo Braga and Dira Paes are in the cast. It is a Brazilian production. The film screened at the Venice Film Festival on 2 September 2024 and won the best director award in the Venice Days section. It reached Brazilian cinemas on 15 May 2025. It took the critics' award for best Brazilian film at the São Paulo festival, and the special jury prize and the audience award at the Huelva festival. The director spent years researching in the region beforehand and the narrative rests on that work. The matter it treats is the abuse of children in the Amazon; the film gives it not in the language of reporting but through the daily life of a girl. The narrative does not show the events; the violence stays outside the frame and its effect is built through looks. Its limit is the watching; the subject is heavy, the narrative offers no hope, and some scenes are hard to bear. Who it is for: viewers who like Brazilian cinema and social realist narrative. Who it is not for: it is shattering, bleak, and the ending bitter.