The Nature of Invisible Things

Rafaela Camelo's first feature, a Brazilian Chilean co production, premiered as the opening film of the Generation Kplus section at the 75th Berlin Film Festival. Ten year old Gloria spends her holiday at the hospital where her mother works long nursing shifts, most at ease among the elderly patients on the ward. There she meets Sofia, who is convinced that her great grandmother's decline is the result of being admitted, and the two girls, united by a shared wish to leave, find comfort in each other, until eventually the girls and their mothers spend the last days of summer at a retreat in rural Goiás. Sofia is a trans girl, and the film's handling of this is notable: Camelo deliberately avoids the conventional transition narrative, saying in her own words that Sofia had a question about gender, resolved it, and is now dealing with other problems. Camelo has described the film as being about kinds of love that are not romantic, has noted that caregiving is still too readily coded as feminine, and describes its arc as moving from solitary motherhood toward collective community care. It won three prizes at Gramado, was named best Brazilian film by critics in São Paulo, took Outstanding First Feature in San Francisco, and earned fifteen nominations at Brazil's biggest film awards, where Camelo won Best First Feature Direction. Who it's for: Admirers of quiet Latin American drama told from a child's point of view. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting plot, since the film is a patient observation set largely in hospital corridors.