Marianna Brennand Fortes

Director’s Note

What fascinates me in cinema is the potential to encounter the “other” and how it enables us to see, feel and live in someone else’s shoes. This is why I will have an absolute protagonist, Marcielle – we will be radically on her point of view, seeing only what she sees and hearing only what she hears. As a filmmaker, I want to increase public awareness for such a painful subject matter as sexual abuse of women, especially children and adolescents. In terms of plot, I chose a , a classic narrative with tremendous visual power. Although the abuse scenes are never shown on screen, my intention is to show in a poetic way how the violence impacts on the character perception. Marcielle experiences many conflicts and the film will be with her in her moment of conscious awareness. In the photography I want to show the contrast of the beauty and richness of the region's natural landscape with Marcielle's poor and sad reality. The lush forest with abundant water can be as arid as a desert. A very cinematic environment that hides the unspoken "rules" of its inhabitants. For that “Sisters” will be shot on location, in a riverside community in Amazon Region where this story takes place. Actors’ direction will benefit from that because I’ll be working with actors that will be able to dive into the universe of the film and non-actors that will be comfortable in their habitat. Female characters who interact with Marcielle, will help her to see that is not normal what she is been through and that is possible to put an end to the cycle of abuse. The film will be generous to its characters and their stories, in terms of the length of scenes that reflect the way in which time, and distance, in that part of the world, imprisons its inhabitants.