WORLD PREMIERE of The Trial - O processo in Berlin

O processo offers an intense and evocative behind-the-scenes look at a historical moment of significance - the impeachment process of Brazil’s first female president Dilma Rousseff. The feature-length documentary of Maria Augusta Ramos, will celebrate its world premiere at the section Panorama Dokumente of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival.

Director: Maria Augusta Ramos

Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, 2018, 137 min.

Original language & subtitles: Portuguese / English

a Nofoco Filmes Production

in co-production with Autentika Films, Conijn Film and Canal Brasil

with the support of the World Cinema Fund of the Berlin Film Festival

The Film

O processo portrays the “judicial political” trial that led to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female President. Her lawyer and three senators struggle to prove the President’s innocence against a majority vote by a Congress riddled with corruption.

A tale of betrayal and corruption, the film presents Rousseff’s personal story: herself imprisoned and tortured by the country’s former military dictatorship, she faces impeachment accused of fiscal crimes. Rousseff declares herself innocent and accuses the right-wing opposition of perpetrating a Parliamentary Coup d’état.

The filmmaker was granted unique access to the defense team, to left wing senators and to President Rousseff herself. Maria Augusta Ramos’ technique is wholly observational, without interviews and narrations. The camera captures telling physical and conversational interactions in the private and political sphere while offering viewers a glimpse of the outdoor mass demonstrations.

O processo witnesses how the impeachment triggers a profound political crisis in Brazil. It looks at the collapse of the democratic institutions at the very heart of this crisis and at the economic and geopolitical interests involved.

The Director

Maria Augusta Ramos is a prizewinning Brazilian/Dutch documentary maker. In 2013, the Board of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights awarded Maria Ramos the MAREK NOWICKI PRIZE for her body of work and excellent achievement in showing human rights in film. Her films won multiple awards at international film festivals (e.g. at IDFA, at Visions du Reel, CPH Doc:Copenhagen, at DOK Leipzig, the Netherland Film Festival, Taiwan Int. Doc. Festival and many more). She was born in Brasília, Brazil and graduated in documentary film at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam.

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