PACIFIED
BRAZIL I 2019 I COLOR I 120 MIN. I PORTUGUÉS
REVIEW —
Paxton Winters, who trained as a reporter and photographer, made his second film, Pacified, (2019) after living for eight years in Morro dos Prazeres, a favela located in the south of the Brazilian city Rio de Janeiro (interestingly also the set for José Padilha´s Elite Squad (2007), Pacified (whose title refers to the operation of the Brazilian government to remove drug traffickers from the streets during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games) is a fiction that considers the ambivalent feelings of Tati, a 13-year-old girl who speculates that a favela leader newly released from prison, might be her father. The film, which won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival this year, is an in-depth portrait of the monumental favela, whose verticality is filmed through panoramic shots with the help of a drone. The issues represented in the film are contemporary, narrating personal development in violent environments.
Review by: Carlos Rodríguez
DIRECTOR —
Paxton Winters | Texas | United States, 1972
American writer, director and photoreporter, Paxton Winters is known for the movie Crude (2003), filmed in Turkey. He also directed the television series Alacakaranlik (2003). Pacificado, a film for which he won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festival, has the participation of members of the Morro dos Prazeres community, a favela in Rio de Janeiro, where he lived for eight years.