Let it Roll
Date:
December 15, 2022
Let it Roll
Let it Roll
by Caru Alves de Souza
Manjericão Filmes | Brazil
Live-action feature
Logline
An unemployed single mom, a precariously employed lesbian and a Korean immigrant participate in a Bocce tournament in Italy in order to raise money and escape their personal dramas.
Synopsis
Áurea (45), Yun (21) and Bruna (32) try to survive the largest unemployment crisis in Brazil. Áurea suffers repeated rejections as a job candidate because of her age, Bruna loses her room in a friend’s flat and has nowhere else to go, Yun considers moving back to Korea with her boyfriend where they can share an apartment and have a better life. For them, playing Bocce becomes the perfect pastime in order to get around life’s problems. They don’t care that Bocce is considered an old-fashioned game or a rehabilitation exercise for arthrosis. For them, Bocce is all that’s left.
However, the distraction gains more serious proportions when they find out that the club has enrolled them in a competition that will take them to Italy. This is not because they are good athletes but because the new regulations require that at least one of the teams
in the competition is all-female.
The tournament is the perfect excuse to leave their troubles behind. But, if they want to cash the prize, they will need help. They contact Valéria, an Italian ex-champion known as the “Messi of Bocce” that agrees to train them and split the prize. They embark to Italy unprepared for an A-class tournament but excited with the challenge. During the matches that take place in distant towns and villages in Calabria, they start to understand their unique abilities as players.
When they arrive at the final, they understand their goal is not to win but to beat their insecurities and stay together.
Director’s Profile
Caru Alves de Souza is a director, screenwriter and producer from São Paulo, Brazil, and has been working in the film industry since 2006.
She was a member of Coletivo Vermelha, a group of women professionals in the audiovisual industry in São Paulo that formulated actions that drew attention to the representation of women in cinema and of casadalapa, formed by artists from different backgrounds who created actions in the public space of
São Paulo, uniting art and activism. Her latest feature project, LONELY HEARTS (under development), produced by Rafaella Costa, was selected for the Pop Up Film Residency, in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2022 and for the Co-Production Market at the Berlin Film Festival in 2023. Her most recent fiction feature, MY NAME IS BAGHDAD, won the Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film at the Generation 14 plus at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival and won more than 15 international awards. The film had been awarded in 2017 with the TFI Latin America Fund for projects in an advanced stage of development, by the Tribeca Film Institute and also with the award script development team for the Ibermedia Program, in 2015.
With her production company, Tangerina Entretenimento, she has directed and scripted her first feature UNDERAGE, that was released in San Sebastian IFF in 2013 and FAMILY AFFAIR, distributed in the United Kingdom, Portugal and Brazil. She was one of the directors of Disney+ production by Juliana Vonlanten, All
the same… or Not.
Company Profile
Manjericão Filmes is an independent production company dedicated to the creation and development of projects for cinema and television. Created by Rafaella Costa, it works annually with a select number of projects, focused on artistic quality, international vocation and commercial potential. The production company works executively and creatively with partner directors in successful co-productions, such as the feature film LEVANTE (POWER ALLEY), directed by Lillah Halla, a Brazil, France and Uruguay co-production that had its world premiere at the 62nd Critics’ Week at the Cannes Festival in 2023 and was the big winner of the Fipresci Prize. After its premiere, the film has already won more than 20 awards around the world.
MY NAME IS BAGHDAD (2020), by Caru Alves de Souza, which
had its world premiere at the Generation 14plus at the 70th Berlin
Festival and won the Crystal Bear for Best Film from the International Jury. The film was screened at over 80 festivals and received 15 additional awards;
UNDERAGE (2014), Caru Alves de Souza’s first feature film, which
had its world premiere at the 61st IFF in San Sebastián and was
awarded Best Film at the 15th IFF Rio. BRING IT INSIDE (2016) and EXPRESS KIDNAPPING (2018), both directed by Tata Amaral; and THE SILENT PARTY (2019), directed by Diego Fried and Federico Finkielstain, a co-production with Argentina that had its world premiere at the 34th Mar del Plata IFF.