Valentina features on this year’s Durban International Film Festival (DIFF) 2021 which is being screened virtually from Thursday July 22 until Sunday August 1, 2021
Brazil
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes
Language: Portuguese (English subtitles)
Writer / director: Cassio Pereira dos Santos
Valentina: Thiessa Woinbackk
Julio: Ronaldo Bonafro
Amanda: Leticia Franco
Genre: Drama
Valentina (17 years old, formerly Raul) is well
on the way to becoming the woman she always saw herself as. Her mother is 100%
behind her transformation, but is now a single parent, as her husband left her
and Valentina to their own devices, and is nowhere to be found. She and her
daughter move to a small town in Brazil to start a new life for themselves.
The fact that the father is nowhere to be found would normally not be a problem, but because Valentina wants to register at her new school under her new “social name” as opposed to her birth name, Brazilian law and the school require both parents to sign the enrolment form, so the search starts for the missing father. Fortunately, there is time as the new term only starts in a few weeks.
Valentina attends summer school in the meantime and forms strong bonds with a pregnant Amanda and gay Julio, neither of whom fit in with their peers, so they understand Valentina’s hesitancy at wanting to tell potential school mates her secret.
The three attend a New Year’s costume party. Julio promises to look after Valentina, ensuring she does not have too much to drink, but reneges on his promise after a handsome stranger gives him the eye, and Julio finds it impossible to resist the man’s magnetism. Valentina passes out on a bed and wakes to find a stranger in a vampire costume groping her up. The search is then on for the identity of the stranger, which leads to a confrontation with his elder brother, who tries to sweep the whole affair under the carpet to protect everyone concerned.
Unfortunately, Valentina’s secret comes out, and a photo of her face superimposed on a male body does the round of the school students, leading to protests from parents, and a rock being thrown through a glass panel in the front door of their residence. The story takes several twists and turns, and ends with a pretty explosive climax on Valentina’s first day at school for the new term.
There are many questions raised in this well-made Brazilian movie, the main one being freedom of choice to be whatever you want to be, along with how possible or impossible it is to keep a community happy with their vision of a “normal” neighbourhood? Who feel more of an outcast – gays or transgenders? The questions pile up thick and fast, doing what every good movie should do – make one think! – Barry Meehan
For more information on the Durban International Film Festival visit https://ccadiff.ukzn.ac.za/
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