The Best Mother in the World

Gal makes her living collecting recyclable waste from the streets and lives inside an abusive relationship. One day she puts her two small children into the cart she uses for that work and walks out. She tells them it is an adventure, and they go. Anna Muylaert's central choice is what holds the film up: the camera walks with the mother, and there is no rescuer, no institution, nobody offering a way out. The daily arithmetic of homelessness, where to sleep and what to eat, is seen from inside the game she is playing for the children. Shirley Cruz leads, with Seu Jorge among the cast. It premiered in the Berlinale Special section of the seventy fifth Berlin film festival on 15 February 2025 and was named best film at Huelva later that year. The demand it makes is that it never releases the tension and refuses to hand you a comforting close. Who it is for: admirers of Brazilian social realism. Who it is not for: anyone who needs an ending that promises hope.