Noã Bonoba as Madalena

Universally liked, the film ‘Death & Life of Madalena’ has unsurprisingly garnered 2 nominations and no fewer than 12 wins for the film and crew, including a Special Jury Award at the São Paulo International Film Festival, Best Film at the Festival Ibérico de Cine de Sergipe, Best Actress for Noá Bonoba, plus Best Original Score and Best Sound.      

The film opens with the funeral of a well- known and much-loved film director, where large wreaths mourn his loss: - “Brazilian cinema loses a great producer. Heaven wins an angel.”    The wreath of his daughter Madalena (played by Noá Bonoba) reads: -

“A father by fate, mentor of my life, part of me dies with you” Madalena

True to her love for her father, the pregnant and grieving Madalena is determined to film the script of his dream Sci- Fi movie against all odds.  The challenges merely start there, as, almost immediately, she has to persuade her motley crew to keep going, when her ex-husband Davi (Marcus Curvelo) the appointed director of the production, vanishes into the ether on the very first day of the shoot. 

Guto Parente directs Noã Bonoba

Not one to panic, Madalena sets out to persuade another crew member to direct, but the only one who agrees is the unreliable actor who plays Zion, Oswaldo (Tavindo Teixeira).  She ends up having to chastise him for altering the scrip and film himself dancing and stripping to loud music instead of directing the movie. Oswaldo tries to excuse himself by insisting that changing the script was one of Stanley Kubrick’s renowned characteristics: -

“Are you comparing yourself to Kubrick now? ... Kubrick would never stick his arm up his ass on top of a sound system…”

Despite now being 8 ½ -months into her pregnancy, Madalena realizes she has to take up the baton herself. There is an element of tongue-in- cheek humour and a love for people with all their humanity that shines through with the absurdity of the situations she faces, including juggling budgets, crew dramas and logistical nightmares from rain storms to the local police interference. But  the formidable Madalena is nothing if not an opportunist, and she manages to draft the coppers into helping out with the production, in particular by providing a gun.  She even manages to stave off a strike from the unpaid crew, holding them all together by the skin of her teeth with warmth, humour and love.  

Noá Bonoba’s bold and powerful performance as Mada (as she is known) carries the film with her dynamic character. While others stray and go back to taking drugs, she fights her craving for a cigarette and carries the last one around with her almost like a symbol of her success. 

Guto Parente

Typical of the varied works created by director Guto Parente, here he also plays with genres, challenging the very norms of those genres.  In Death and Life of Madalena Parente mixes comedy with a documentary feel as Madalena refuses to quit as she carries her dead father’s ashes around with her for strength.  His use of sound and music is very atmospheric and effective and the awards for Best Original score by Paulo Game and Best Sound for Lucas Coelho de Carvalho are well deserved. 

Guto Parente emerged from the north of Brazil where, for some years, a strong creative film hub has developed, with ever more challenging and award -winning productions. Among Parente’s earlier films we have Cannibal Club (2018) a gory film of black humour at its best, and the charming Inherninho (My own Private Hell-2018) where local persons who cannot fit in easily anywhere, find a refuge in the Inherninho Bar that they are determined to protect and redevelopment.  Not so much a private Hell, the bar has become their private heaven.  

Despite the humour, there is a theme of grief throughout Death & Life of Madalena and how people come to terms with it. We see Madalena as a child, suffering the loss of her mother and then, older, losing her beloved father as well. Then her close assistant Natasha’s (Nataly Rocha) father, dies during the shoot, so this theme hangs unspoken in the background. 

Nevertheless, this is a highly enjoyable movie, with a feel-good factor. Mada’s baby (named Fellini) manages to hangs in there somehow, although maybe her celebratory Karaoke at the end might be one effort too many. 

The Crew celebrate the wrap with some karaoke

This film carries you along as if you were listening to a good track of Brazilian music.  Some of the crew on the Sci-Fi production are trans and gay and Parente has often mused that “queer cinema allows a greater freedom in aesthetic and political ways” so here the gender diverse crew build up a family of sorts, and the one thing that unites them all, is love on many levels.

“To Dream is Human” –

DEATH & LIFE OF MADALENA (2025) is being screened at the 2026 BFI Flare Film Festival in the MINDS strand 

(Reflections on art, politics and community)

CREDITS: -

Written & Directed by Guto Parente/ Production: Ticiana Augusto Lima / Co-Producer: Isabela Machado / Art Director: Taís Augusto / DOP Ivo Loes Araújo / Direct Sound: Lucas Coelho/ Editors: Guto Parente & Irmãs Augusto Lima / Original Score: Paulo Gama

CAST: -

Gilmar & Antonio: Carlos Francisco (voice) /Madalena: Noá Bonoba /Natasha: Nataly Rocha / Davi: Marcus Curvelo /Jessica: Jennifer Joingley / Nonato: David Santos / Rodrigo/Rodrygson: Rodrigo Fernandes /Tavares & Devian: Tavares Neto /Oswaldo & Zion: Tavindo Teixeira /Gilberto: Honório Félix /Madalena (child): Raul Lôbo / Fellini (baby): Olivia Maria Pocã

For more information on the Guto Parente films featured in the article please see: -

Cannibal Club & Morte Não Fala (The Night Shifter) 2018 - https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/two-new-brazilian-films-revel-gore

My own private Hell (Inferninho) -2018 - http://latinolife.co.uk/articles/my-own-private-hell-   inferninho-2018-dir-guto-parente