Brazilian film premieres at the Brooklyn Film Festival

“Welcome, Violet!” tells the story of Ana (played by Brazilian actress Débora Falabella), an anxious young woman desperate to complete her short novel Violeta in the well-known “End of the World” literary laboratory.

“Over the course of her stay at the remote artist residency, Ana becomes increasingly familiar with Holden’s idiosyncratic methods, which require participating artists to abandon their own identities and live emotionally and psychologically as their characters. Captivated by her artistic research, Ana completely immerses herself in the method and begins to live like Violeta, until her fiction loses control”, indicates the synopsis of this Argentine-Brazilian production directed by the São Paulo director and writer Fernando Fraiha.

The film “Welcome, Violeta!”, which is based on the novel “Cordillera” by Brazilian writer Daniel Galera, will star renowned Argentine actor Darío Grandinetti as Holden. This is a charismatic leader of a writing residence located deep in the imposing Andes mountain range, in Argentine territory.

The cast also includes Germano Melo, Maria Ucedo, Pablo Sigal, Jenny Moule, and Fredy Johnson.

The fictional feature film makes references to the experiences of director Fraiha, who as a young man has been trapped by a cult art community. The film also deftly explores the nuanced intersections of creativity, vulnerability, personal identity, and the potential for emotional coercion when one gives oneself fully to his craft.

“When I was twenty years old, when I was starting to learn cinema, I joined a group of artists who met twice a month to drink Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic tea, with the aim of mixing creativity and spirituality. There was a leader in the group that I naively followed, believing that the more she obeyed her, the closer she brought me to some inner truth. After three years of weekly rituals, I realized that I was exposing myself to abusive experiences. The group, which I initially thought held the answers or the keys to a deeper awakening, turned into a trap that was making me abandon my own life to live in a fantasy world. The story that I lived and the story of the main character of the film have a common trace: among so many narratives, we are all desperately trying to make sense of the world”, commented Fraiha.

In this way, the psychological thriller tries to become a portrait of the creative process and the extremes a person is willing to go to in the name of art.

The production has been in charge of Rodrigo Teixeira; while the script has been written by Fraiha and Inés Bortagaray.

“Welcome, Violet!” will have its world premiere in the fiction feature film competition at the 2022 edition of the Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF for its acronym in English); which will take place in person and online from June 3 to 12 in New York City.

Brazilian film premieres at the Brooklyn Film Festival