Mirna Spritzer

A fiction film based on the real story of a 16 year-old boy who, aided by the internet, won over the world with his talent for music and art. Fluent in five languages, Yonlu had a network of virtual friends on all continents. However, no one suspected he was also taking part in a forum for potential suicide.

The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his father had left for good, back to France. Tony then looks for the company of his fathers friends in search of information and references of a lost male role-model. He becomes a school teacher and a male figure to kids, in an attempt to provide them with something he lacks himself. A series of developments lead him to a surprising final lead on his fathers' whereabouts and reasons for leaving.

Written in 1625 by the British playwright Ben Jonson, the play “The Staple of News” provides a historic root for this discussion about the role of the press in modern day Brazil. Journalists of several generations discuss the dilemmas of the selection and focus of their subjects, the resistance of the media in accepting itself as a political agent, the inevitability of interpretation as there are no hard facts in nature, and above all the search for an always complex balance between credibility and the public’s growing demand for news.

Picucha may seem old-fashioned, but she has modern ideas and a great sense of humor. As the matriarch of a big family, she is involved in the daily lives of her children, grandchildren and other relatives. Undeterred by the typical problems of old age, she uses her many years of experience to solve problems in the best way possible.