Um Animal Amarelo

How to make a film in a country that is losing its identity? This is the question facing Fernando, the protagonist in A Yellow Animal: a bankrupt, thirty-something-white-male filmmaker from Brazil. On the basis of the adventures of this alter ego, versatile and productive director Felipe Bragança gives an imaginative, melancholy, provocative and colourful answer to this question in his new film. Obsessed by this grandfather's past, and pursued from an early age by the spirit of a Mozambiquan, Fernando's odyssey takes him to Mozambique and Portugal, ever closer to the roots of Brazil's cultural dilemma. A Yellow Animal argues for a Brazilian film that causes nationalist, ethnic and colonial boundaries to fade. Because, as with the best trips, in this tragicomic fable it's not so much about the destination, but the unpredictable journey. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)