Unspoken class barriers within a home are challenged when the live-in housekeeper’s daughter suddenly appears.

The Second Mother

Screening and Q&A with filmmaker Anna Muylaert
WED. MAR. 2, 2016 @ 6:30pm
in 6-120
MIT campus, Building 6

Sponsored by MIT Global Studies and Languages • MISTI-Brazil • Women’s and Gender Studies, Women Take the Reel Film Festival

The Second Mother

  • Run Time: 112 Minutes
  • Written & Directed by ANNA MUYLAERT
  • Produced by FABIANO GULLANE, CAIO GULLANE, DEBORA IVANOV, and ANNA MUYLAERT
  • Starring REGINA CASÉ, MICHEL JOELSAS, CAMILA MÁRDILA, KARINE TELES, and LOURENÇO MUTARELLI
  • 2015 Sundance Film Festival – Winner –  Special Jury Prize for Acting (Regina Casé & Camila Márdila)
  • 2015 National Board of Review
  • One of the Top Five Foreign Language Films 2015 International Press Academy Satellite Awards
  • Nominee –  Best International Motion Picture 2015 Broadcast Film Critics Association Critics’ Choice Awards
  • Nominee – Best Foreign Language FilmBrazil’s Official Oscar® Entry for Best Foreign Language Film

SYNOPSIS
n excitingly fresh take on some classic themes and ideas, THE SECOND MOTHER centers around Val (Regina Casé), a hardworking live-in housekeeper in modern day Sao Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers’ needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val’s estranged daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) suddenly shows up the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray. Jessica is smart, confident, and ambitious, and refuses to accept the upstairs/downstairs dynamic, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means.

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