Mia (Luísa Bastos) is told it isn’t an omen that her nose starts to bleed as she’s preparing to get on a bus to visit relatives in the Brazilian wetlands, a far cry from her home in the city in “Minha mãe é uma vaca (My Mother is a Cow).” The 11-year-old worries for her mother being so far away from her while there are more pressing concerns for the farmers that have taken her in, as jaguars are preying on their livestock, their land is under threat from the government which could make more territory available to logging companies and others seeking to drain it of its natural resources and there might not be much left after a wildfire rages just outside the perimeter, looking as if it could creep towards them as the hours pass.
In Moara Passoni’s beguiling coming-of-age tale, Mia may feel too young at first to be able to do much of anything about the perilous situation, but then again her youth has also provided a naviete and imagination that allows for a little more hope than any of the adults around her who can do little more than sit and stew. She may not have wanted to take the trip in the first place, but Passoni makes it worthwhile for audiences as the beauty of the protagonist finding something to become so fiercely protective of in a place where there are so many other organic developments that can go underappreciated. With “Hala” cinematographer Carolina Costa on hand to deliver wondrous images from what’s mundane to the rancheros in their daily routine, the short reveals a new way to look at the world, with Mia presented as part of a long lineage of those who have been compelled to protect their roots and by extension the earth as a whole.
A small gesture that has the ability to make a difference in a brutal environment may be lovely to behold in front of the camera, but something similar unfolded behind it when “My Mother is a Cow” was helped along to the screen in part by the Brazilian Filmmakers Collective, counting among its crew “Beba” producer Sofia Geld and “7 Prisoners” director Alexandre Moratto, showing there’s a real strength in numbers when protecting a story so delicate. Passoni, who has primarily worked in nonfiction in recent years, co-writing Petra Costa’s “The Edge of Democracy” and the upcoming “Apocalypse in the Tropics” in addition to directing her own feature doc “Ecstasy,” shows a tender touch with a largely nonprofessional cast and locating naturally occurring tensions. With the film premiering this week at the Venice Film Festival, Passoni spoke about how she opened up the shoot to let life into it, finding its fine young star and the film’s connection to her own youth.
How did this come about?
I had a long experience in the Brazilian wetlands when I was around 11 years old. I stayed with an aunt that had a farm there at that time and it was very impressive to me because I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, which is like a megalopolis and, when I went to the wetlands, I discovered the cycles of life and death [in nature]. It was a very strong experience that stayed with me forever and also, I remember the images — [this film] started because I was very impacted by the image of a cow. And they killed some cows [on the farm] to eat [which is a part of] normal life [there], but that image was very strong to me because it was the first time I had contact with that, so the whole film originated from that moment.
Did you actually shoot this in the same area where those memories came from?
This place is nearby. My aunt’s farm does not exist anymore, so we were searching for a place in the wetlands and Caimãn is a [nature] reserve, so we thought, “Maybe that’s a good idea” and they have a community of people living there that we really wanted to work with, and it was amazing because they really supported us in all ways you could imagine. Besides [the actress who plays] the lead character, Mia, [who] comes from Sao Paulo, all the other actors are not actors. They are people from Pantanal who were living at the farm and have different roles there. I wrote the screenplay with Fernanda Frotte and we went there for research and stayed for 15 days before the shooting and we met all these people and we explained the story to them, so they would give us feedback. We we started creating the characters a little bit together and [Fernanda and I] rewrote the screenplay based on the stories they were telling us.
How did you actually find the actress who plays Mia?
I have a longtime collaborator Patricia Faria, who is a casting director, and I was living in New York City at the time of looking for the lead, and Pati told me, “No, I can help you.” So we opened a casting and were amazed by how many girls showed up. After some tests, we discovered Luisa and she stuck with me because she really has a strong imagination. You’d tell her something, and she can really dive into that reality very easily and go in and go out, so it was like love at first sight.
Then [the people from Pantanal] welcomed her and bringing her to the wetlands gave her the space to really live another character. So she was really Mia there, discovering the world as Mia does [in the film] because we worked a little bit before we went to the wetlands and did some preparations before we started shooting, but we were able to create a very harmonious environment. People were so kind to her [there], so it was growth process and creating together.
Because of both the weather and how much livestock you had to deal with, how much you were you adapting to the environment versus how much you could actually plan for in advance?
The biggest difference between what I experienced [as a child] and now in the wetlands are the fires because they used to be one of the wettest places in the world and now it’s burning because of legal fires, cattle, global warming and several elements. So I was expecting to find a very wet place and it was not so wet. So the story started to change because the fire couldn’t be on the farm but surrounding the farm, and when Fernanda and I were discovering how [the farmers] took care of the cattle, we tried to incorporate that into the film because before this was [primarily] the story of a cow and a girl, but we incorporated the cycle of the cattle arriving to the farm, growing and going away.
The framing was beautiful throughout. What were your conversations like with Carolina Costa?
Carolina also went [to this area] a little bit before the shooting and we were visiting locations and reading the screenplay, creating the shots together according to what do we want to communicate in each of the moments of the film. We had a thousand references for what the framing [would be], how we wanted to create the scenes, which lenses to use and we were very strict. But of course you do all this preparation and when the shooting comes, you have to improvise a lot also because we have a cow and the cow was not necessarily always in the place we wanted her to be. But [that preparation allows] you to be able to improvise because you already know what you’re going for, so the idea is very clear, then you can adapt and discover what is going there. We had less time than we imagined to shoot, so we had to be much more precise with the shots that we were filming and when you don’t have endless possibilities, it made each shot more urgent, so there was more pressure, but interesting because we had less time because we needed to find the cow, bring the cow back and et cetera.
Was there anything that happened you may not have expected but came to like about it?
It was probably the cow, but we have this guy in the film who is a jaguar hunter — or he used to be a jaguar hunter and he joined a program to reintroduce jaguars into nature and take care of them after falling in love with the jaguar. And we were [filming] the scene at the school and he start talking about his experience and [we then built the scene] around that story. The other one is when Mia was with these cowboys on the ranch and they were telling stories. We stayed there four hours, and we could even do a little documentary only about what they were telling.
So [this shoot] was all about improvisation. Claudio, the uncle, really loved playing in the film, so I would give him some themes to improvise and he would develop several stories. His capacity to create things was very impressive and because the wetlands is a magical place, there are a lot of stories. People love to sit down and tell stories and for us, it was an opportunity to listen. We were not sure this scene would be in the film, but we needed to film it until the end.
You end the film with a really beautiful shot that you superimpose credits over – it looks very bespoke with cursive handwriting and the scene itself of the landscape is quite breathtaking. How did you capture that moment?
I was discussing [the credits] with my designer Sebastián Chicchón, who’s from Peru and we were trying to find something that felt organic with the film because we wanted to use it over that shot. That [shot] was also something that happened that we did not predict — we were not expecting the cows to cross the frame at that specific moment and the cow turned to Mia and moves and it was right in the middle of the frame. So we really incorporated in the film and [I thought] the handwriting was because Mia goes to this place where we do not know if she becomes a jaguar or if she’s devoured by the jaguar, but at the same time, she’s protecting the cow and to fight the jaguar, you have to become a jaguar and scream as loud as a jaguar would scream to try to send her away. So we thought, [the credits] would be these scratches on the screen. So that’s how we got there and we had to adapt to something that we could read.
Beyond how exciting this is on its own, it also represents something pretty special when it was developed as part of the Brazilian Filmmakers Collective. How did it come together as part of that?
It’s really great. You feel there are people you can really trust and exchange work, and then you can grow together as filmmakers and I think this is very precious. Alex Moratto invited me to the collective at first, so I was part of the foundation of it and we started working and creating together. Then Sofia [Geld] and also Carolina [Costa] of course and [with this film], I showed Alex the footage and he fell in love and said, “Okay, I’m going to help you to finish the film.” So it’s really building a vocabulary and a community together where you can trust each other, where you can support each other and really push each other forward. It’s a very safe space where we meet every week and where we discuss our work and brainstorm about what can we do? How can we improve ourselves as filmmakers, but also getting out into the world. When the market so challenging and is in this strong transformation right now, it feels like a little paradise in the middle of the day-to-day.
What’s it like to send this out into the world?
It’s amazing, and because it’s Venice, it’s a dream. It’s unbelievable. At the same time, it makes me a little bit nervous because it’s the first time you’re showing something to the world. We learn a lot when we show a film to the audience and how they react, so I’m excited… and afraid. [laughs]
“My Mother is a Cow” will screen at the Venice Film Festival on August 29th at 9 am at the Sala Casino, September 5th at 5 pm at the Sala Giardino and September 6th at 9 am at Astra 1.