Laura

Laura is a creature of the night. She loves the flash and the glamour of the star system. Night after night she is out meeting Hollywood’s heavy hitters. Carefully staging her entrance in the realms of the gods of show business, her moment of truth is standing in line waiting to be admitted and then wave her hand and greet people as if she belonged to a world that is out of reach for everybody else but her. But this is only the surface. The truth is harsher. Of Brazilian descent, Laura has hit New York hoping to make it big time. Living in a tiny flat, crowded with an incredible number of boxes and plastic bags, she treads a thin line between flash and extreme poverty. Director Fellipe Barbosa follows Laura on her nighttime adventures, arguing about the way he imagines his film about her. Like a soulful blues that echoes somewhere deep in the night, Laura is a film about exile and loneliness. Fellipe Barbosa’s lavishly textured images recall both Cassavetes at his nocturnal best and lost gems of American independent cinema of the 1970s such as Barbara Loden’s Wanda.

Giona A. Nazzaro