Valentina

Cassio Pereira dos Santos's 2020 Brazilian film follows a trans teenage girl and her mother as they move to a new town. The aim is to start over, but enrolling in the local high school requires a second parent's signature and the girl's father is not there. The film begins from a bureaucratic obstacle and opens onto a wider question: how many people's approval a person needs in order to exist under their own name. The reactions in the town are not hostile from the start; they arrive quietly, late and indirectly, and the film keeps that realism. Thiessa Woinbackk, in the lead, is a trans actor, and that is the film's most important decision in terms of representation. Guta Stresser as the mother carries a character moving between protectiveness and acceptance without over-sentimentalising her. Who it's for: those curious about contemporary Latin American cinema centred on trans experience. Who it's not for: viewers who want to avoid scenes of transphobic violence; the film shows one directly.