Following the international festival run of her acclaimed short “Infantaria” which bowed at the Berlinale, Brazilian director Laís Santos Araújo is developing the project into a feature, with producer Pedro Krull of Aguda Cinema steering the project through the prestigious Cannes Cinéfondation Résidence and a slate of European development initiatives.
Set against the landscapes of Alagoas in Brazil’s Northeast, the film expands the universe glimpsed in the short; a family ecosystem orbiting around Ludmilla, a seamstress who quietly runs an underground abortion service from her home, renting out a bed to women undergoing the illegal procedure. Where the short narrowed in on young Joana, the feature widens its lens to take in Ludmilla herself and Eduardo described by Araújo as “lonely and confused and who I want to be better understood.” The expansion was never the plan.
“It wasn’t something that was planned, we never made the short with the intention of making it a feature or as a ‘proof of concept,'” Araújo told Variety. “But I kept thinking about the characters and the universe from the short. We only see a brief moment of that family dynamics on the short and I felt so much more could happen at that house.”
