The Cambridge Squatter

Eliane Caffe's 2017 Brazilian film follows people occupying an abandoned hotel building in Sao Paulo. Newly arrived refugees and low-income workers live inside together, and an eviction order is a constantly awaited threat. The film sits between fiction and documentary. People who actually live in the building play themselves and the leader of the occupation movement is in the cast; the script was written together with what they recounted. The narrative shows the daily form of communal living: meetings, arguments over turns, differences of language and problems with the electricity. There is humour and the situation is not made heavier; but the possibility of eviction sits under every scene. Who it's for: those interested in Brazilian cinema and struggles over housing. Who it's not for: viewers who want a clear line between fiction and the real; the film mixes them deliberately.