The Defiance Of Joy In Emma Boccanfuso’s “Saudades Eternas”
Emma Boccanfuso’s debut film Saudades Eternas, which had its world premiere at the 57th edition of Visions du Réel, renders a portrait of a family living in a favela, characterised by a vivant carefreeness that acts as a bulwark against the fear of violence.
In the collective imagination, fuelled by films such as City of God (A Cidade de Deus, Fernando Meirelles, 2002), favelas appear as locations where poverty and violence are daily neighbors (each feeding the other in a relentless cycle), and which are best observed from a distance, preferably through the medium of cinema.
Fortunately, as early as the late 1950s with Rio, Zona Norte (Nelson Perreira dos Santos, 1957), there have been works—both fictional and nonfictional, Brazilian and foreign—that manage to focus on the precarious lives of the precinct’s inhabitants while eschewing nihilism or sensationalism. Swiss director Samuel Chalard’s Favela Olímpica (2017) offered a nuanced portrayal, focusing on the kinds of relationships fostered within the architecture of the favelas.
In her first directorial outing, Boccanfuso captures the daily life of a family in the Chápeu Mangueira community, a favela whose existence is fraught with police-civilian clashes and drug dealers threatening the safety of residents. However, this filmmaker does not aim to merely document the situation in the favela; she chooses to focus on the family’s account of events.
At the heart of this is the middle-aged Sueli, full of vitality, eccentricity, exuberance and theatricality. The latter characteristic becomes evident in a scene where she impatiently screams her granddaughter’s name repeatedly, before laughing in spite of herself as she makes peace with the role of the exasperated grandmother and leans fully into it. Bickering and quick-wittedness prevail in equal measure, each an inevitable product of the other. But this approach sometimes backfires as her complaints and fears are regarded with derision by those around her. There are also moments where she struggles to figure out the direction of gunfire as law enforcement agents slug it out with representatives of the underworld.
The violence, portrayed mostly by sound rather than visuals, causes a sense of dread to engulf the minds of the film’s subjects. It’s difficult for this trepidation not to pervade the atmosphere when their acquaintances, some closer than others, are victims of this violence. They take refuge in whimsy and drollery as coping mechanisms. In one of the film’s opening sequences, Marina (Sueli’s granddaughter), who wants to leave the house whilst the sound of gunfire rings out, insists that it is merely firecrackers. The contrast between the farcical light-heartedness that reigns within the family and the danger that constantly threatens to strike is palpable.
Through the interactions in which she participates whilst remaining behind the camera, Boccanfuso succeeds in achieving a high degree of intimacy with this family, thus avoiding a condescending gaze. This is in spite of the squalor that is evident in the cramped spaces of the flat where her subjects live: shots of the street are rare, the freezer serves as a table, and plastic chairs are stacked up as seats for the children.
In depicting this family’s journey, Boccanfuso uses extreme close-ups in deliberate fashion, whilst also inviting them to find, through self-expression, a boisterousness that enables them to live authentically in spite of impecuniosity or bereavement. In so doing, the clan (with a spirited filmmaker to guide them) offer audiences a rounded, refreshing portrayal of daily subsistence far removed from the clichés about the people of the favelas. Their joy is as infectious as it is defiant, and it doesn’t matter if the walls are caving in or a pistol is going off just outside, you can expect one of them to quell tensions with a wisecrack.
*Saudades Eternas won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2026 Visions Du Reel.*
By Sabrina Schwob
Edited by Jerry Chiemeke
Copyright FIPRESCI 2026