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A "Semente e a Onça" (Poison Hearts) is a feature-length fiction project currently under development and fundraising.

 

The project's development was promoted by the 2023 Santa Catarina Cinema Award - Paulo Gustavo Special Edition 

LOGLINE

In a desertified future, Suzana, a young agricultural machine operator, agrees to smuggle pesticides to help her sick sister, but when she crosses paths with Milagros, a Uruguayan hacker whom she gives a ride to, and the truck is seized, both are forced to embark on an inevitable journey of escape, discovery, and revenge.

The film is an odyssey through southern Latin America, in an unwanted but probable future.

SYNOPSIS

In a desertic future, Suzana, a young agricultural machine operator, lives and works on the industrial corn farm inherited by Douglas Júnior, in the countryside of Santa Catarina. She divides her time between long working hours and the house where she lives with her mother Nera and her sister Lulu, who has a respiratory disease. In a region without hospitals, the virtual doctor informs them that only an expensive medicine can treat the child's illness. When Suzana receives a proposal from her new boss, a mission to increase the farm's profits, she accepts, despite the risk, because she needs to help her sister.

Heading towards the border with Argentina, she ends up giving a ride to Milagros, a Uruguayan street artist with a punk look, who is secretly a hacker. On the way back, the police intercept the truck and they flee, abandoning the vehicle and its cargo. From the news, they discover that they were transporting pesticides, cocaine, and electronic cigarettes. In search for food, they trespass on an agroecological refuge run by two armed elderly women, who force them to work on the land.

Over time, Suzana and Milagros gain the women's trust, who reveal links to activists, and the relationship turns into friendship. Helped by the elderly women, the two head to the capital: they hitch a ride on a coal train and are welcomed by a group of Milagros' hacker friends. The collective invites Suzana to participate in a cyberattack on a large chemical industry, promising her the money she needs to save her sister. Suzana accepts, but after calling her sister and being answered by Douglas, she decides to leave, taking money, a gun, and a car that belonged to Milagros's group.

Upon returning, she finds her mother alone: Lulu died from lack of help. Enraged, Suzana breaks into Douglas's room, where he is sleeping. She points a gun at his head and drowns him with pesticide. She sets fire to the house where she lived, and in the end, mother and daughter leave the burning farm behind.

THEMES

The film explores the climate emergency and the impacts of agribusiness based on monoculture and chemical use, highlighting the struggle for land in rural areas and sustainable alternatives, such as agroecology. It also addresses cyberactivism, the technological inequality generated by artificial intelligence, and queer and dissident existences, reflecting on the social and environmental tensions of a changing world.

The Seed and the Jaguar is a science fiction road movie that presents a near and dystopian future, which reflects on the present of our society.

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE, GENRES AND REFERENCES

"Poison Hearts" (portugese "A semente e a onça") is a genre fiction script formulated using a classic narrative structure. In this sense, it's a hero's journey, set in a Latin American and feminine context, in a dystopian and futuristic universe. This structure aims to connect with different audiences and also access commercial movie theaters. The genres articulated here are science fiction, road movies, crime films, and action films, with elements of social satire and comedy.

 

Some of the references are: “Madalena” (Madiano Marcheti, 2021), “Boi Neon” (Gabriel Mascaro, 2015), "Bacurau" (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2019), "Las Hijas del Fuego" (Albertina Carri, 2019), "Thelma & Louise" (Ridley Scott, 1992), "Y Tu Mamá También" (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001), in addition to the low-budget science fiction cinema of Adirley Queirós.

The project has already been featured at events such as FAM's ECM+Lab, Conexão Brasil CineMundi, and RECAM's Call for Strengthening MERCOSUR Co-production Projects.

FIRST PROJECT RESEARCH TEASER

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