The Bare Faced Clown

Directed by

Camilo Cavalcante

Flávio, an actor going through a marital crisis, returns to his mother’s home while preparing a theatrical recital inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s book “The Poetics of Reverie”. Desperate for a stage to perform on, he will present the work on the streets of Recife as a poetic manifesto. The year is 2016, and Brazil is sinking into a political crisis, while the artist immerses himself in his art as the only utopia he has left. During this journey, we witness the affectionate —yet sometimes strained— relationship between mother and son, and Flávio’s moments of deep sadness, compounded by the impeachment process of Dilma Rousseff, which de watches on TV and will have severe consequences for everyone’s lives. A metonymy of Brazil’s recent history.