From Brazilian director Anna Muylaert (Durval Discos, É Proibido Fumar) comes this immensely appealing, warm and poignant film – which won the Audience Award at the Berlinale, and is getting excellent advance press – following a live-in maid and her estranged daughter in Sao Paulo.
After leaving her daughter to be raised by relatives, Val (Regina Case) spends the next 13 years as a nanny to Fabinho and live-in help to his family in São Paulo. She has financial stability but struggles with the guilt of failing to raise her daughter Jessica herself; and when Jessica calls, wanting to come to São Paulo for her exams, Val is overjoyed.
But when Jessica arrives, their longed-for reunion doesn’t go smoothly; she quickly begins to create tension inside the household, and affects everyone with her outspoken candour – putting Val right in the middle, split between the living room and the kitchen, and forced to find a new way of facing life.
