HOUSE OF IZABEL
Screening with THE BLACK WIDOW
HOUSE OF IZABEL (UK Premiere)
Dir: Gil Baroni. Starring: Jorge Neto, Luis Melo, Laura Haddad. Brazil (2023) 84mins
A chanteuse, a Hollywood starlet, the first lady of Brazil: the guests of Casa Izabel are an eclectic group. In their day-to-day lives, they are regular middle-aged, male-presenting individuals, but their clandestine pilgrimages to Casa Izabel provide a temporary escape, allowing them to become the glamorous women they desire to be. At the isolated country estate owned by the infirm Norma Desmond-esque Izabel, they don wigs, make-up, gowns, and aliases to live openly for their short stay — tossing back champagne, dancing, and even hunting wild boar in their pumps. But in this cinematically bold and pulpy period melodrama, their carefree feminine fantasy is interrupted when the harsh realities of life under Brazil’s military dictatorship threaten to expose dangerous secrets and destroy the beloved Casa Izabel.
Screening with LA VEDOVA NERA (UK Premiere)
Dir: Fiume & Julian McKinnon. Starring: Siro Pedrozzi, Marina de Van, Ifig Brouard. France (2024) 20mins
Alfredo, a young Italian student, is cycling through the streets of a foreign city when he is caught in a thunderstorm. Seeking shelter, he is attracted by the strange call emanating from a porn cinema that seems to have emerged from another time.
