Film screening followed by a conversation with director Madiano Marcheti. Discussant: Flora Thomson-DeVeaux.

Synopsis: The body of Madalena, a trans woman, lies motionless in a soybean field. This scene ripples out into the lives of three characters: for Luziane, a hostess at a bar, and Cristiano, the heir to a soybean plantation, this spells an unsettling break; for Bianca, an old friend, it’s a sign of the violence hanging over their community. Madalena is a murder mystery in suspense that opens on a crumpled body watched over by rheas and guides viewers through the landscape of Brazil’s hyper-agrarian west: its eerie landscapes, monstrous machinery, and the people trying to survive under drone-patrolled skies.

Madiano Marcheti is a director and screenwriter, and partner at the production company Terceira Margem. He was born and raised in the state of Mato Grosso, in the Brazilian Amazon.

Flora Thomson-DeVeaux is a translator, writer, and researcher. A Princeton alum, Thomson-DeVeaux is a member of the Brazil LAB Advisory Board.