Diary of a Provincial Girl

In the end of the 19th century, when Brazil had just abolished slavery and proclaimed Republic, the girl Helena Morley, starts to write a diary. Of English origens, she lives in Diamantina, a city which was enduring a mining decay at the time. Her father believes the mines around can still be very profitable. Due to the risky choice of the fancier husband, her mother suffers humiliations from the richer brother. Helena shares these agonies, but keeps experiencing the cheerfullness of her age. Rebel and independent, she has disciplinary problems in school, but compensates it with her great skill for writing. She spends most of the time by the grandmother, her greatest protector, flirts with her cousin and stimulates her intuition and intelligence to turn herself from a girl into a woman.

Brazilian screenwriter and filmmaker. She worked as actress and camera assistant in Capitu (1968) and assistant director in the feature film A Mulher de Todos (1970), a film by Rogério Sganzerla. She lived in the USA, where she wrote and directed several documentaries for television, like From the Ashes... Nicarágua (awarded at the Chicago Film Festival), The Brazilian Connection, Chile by Reason or By Force and Made in Brazil. In 1995, she produced, wrote and directed her first feature film, Bananas is My Business, a mixture of documentary and fictional recreation from the singer Carmem Miranda`s life. Her first fiction feature film, Diary of a Provincial Girl (28ª Mostra), based on the book by Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant, awarded with six prizes at the Gramado Film Festival 2004: Best Film, Screenplay, Photography, Soundtrack, Art Direction and Best Film by the audience.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA