Following a newspaper ad, ordinary women tell part of their life stories to director Eduardo Coutinho, which are then re-enacted by actresses, blurring the barriers between truth, fiction and interpretation.
Responding to a newspaper advertisement, eighty-three women told their life stories in a studio. In June 2006, twenty-three of them were selected and filmed at the Glauce Rocha Theater. In September of the same year, actresses interpreted, in their own way, the stories told by the chosen characters.
Director's Notes
This is a documentary – impure, since it incorporates actresses – that thematizes what is said about the characters in a documentary. What is under discussion is the character of the representation. Representing is linked to playing, playing – which appears clearly in languages such as English (to play), French (jouer) and German (spielen). We talk about the true, natural, authentic aspect of the characters, at the same time that more acute critics recognize how much theater, or performance, there is in them, accentuated by the camera effect. And memory is always in the present, which is why it is made of forgetting and invention. In this film, the game to be played includes at least three layers of representation: first, real characters talk about their own lives; second, these characters become models to challenge actresses; and, finally, some actresses play the game of talking about their real lives. The documentary's aim is for characters and actresses to escape stereotypes and, in some way, assert themselves as unique subjects to the extent that the game allows.
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