Interview: Aly Muritiba on Brazil's queer Oscar submission "Private Desert"
Monday, December 13, 2021 at 1:00AM by Nathaniel R
Sometimes the long lead up to a movie's release can alter a story. In the case of Aly Muritiba's Private Desert, most people who come to it will already be aware of its central premise though the movie treats that as a "reveal". Happily the film works either way. Crossing the border can also change how a movie feels. The initial protagonist, Daniel (Antonio Saboia) is viewed sympathetically but his offscreen history (police brutality) is likely to spark different reactions from country to country, depending on societal views on policing and masculinity. In the minimalist but never simple story, a lonely cop spontaneously drives several hours to finally meet the woman he's been romancing online. She abruptly ghosts him after an implicit request for reciprocal nudes and we glean, quite a long time before he does, that he's fallen for a queer person.
We had the pleasure of talking to the director Aly Muritiba about the film, the careful casting of his second lead, and Brazil's contentious history of Oscar selections...