A festa da menina morta (The Dead Girl’s Feast)

2008. Brazil. Directed by Matheus Nachtergaele. One of Brazil’s finest actors makes his directorial debut with this deeply disturbing tale about the deprivation and manipulation simmering beneath extreme religious ritual and superstition. As the appointed “saint” of a remote Amazonian village prepares to speak to his audience in the voice of a dead girl, a rite he has performed for twenty years, the frayed inter-relationships of several members of the remote community are tested. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 115 min.