Estamira is a 63-year-old woman who suffers from schizophrenia. She leads a tough life and has supported herself for the past 20 years by picking through garbage at the Jardim Gramacho Disposal Area in Rio de Janeiro. The film follows her starting in 2000, the year she begins treatment in a psychiatric clinic. At first, it is hard to understand her in her stream-of-consciousness sentences, delusions and obsessions. Gradually, however, we get to know her as a woman who can have quiet and lucid moments despite her illness.
Direction
Prado disappears completely—pure observational courage.
Writing
Estamira's monologues: unscripted, biblical, devastating.
Cinematography
Mountains of trash shot like cathedral stained glass.
Director
Marcos Prado
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Jardim Gramacho was Latin America's largest landfill until its 2012 closure; 3,000 catadores worked there, and the film became accidental testimony to a vanished world.
Marcos Prado spent four years filming Estamira without interference; she initially thought he was an angel sent to document her prophecies.
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