Ainda
by Lillah Halla
Lillah continues to convey struggles in film through Sofia’s story, a young, 16-year-old teenager whose life – built around the sale of the family honey and handball matches – is shattered by an unwanted pregnancy. Despite the public stigma and the lack of legal access in Brazil, she chooses to have an abortion. Supported by her loved ones, she travels to nearby Uruguay – her late mother’s birthplace – where it is lawful.
There’s urgency in Lillah’s cinema. Firstly, urgency in its political insight as a horrifying portrait of Brazil, suffocating from the rise of a fascist, femicidal regime. Secondly in its ruthlessly efficient storytelling; Sofia’s vital energy and her father’s gentleness - miles away from any mannish cliché - stand against intimate, administrative and religious obstacles to tell a fierce, contemporary, feminist journey.
