Un Certain Regard for “Adrift” by Heitor Dhalia

Presented in Un Certain Regard, Adrift by Heitor Dhalia tells the coming of age story of Filipa, 14, who is faced with the conjugal problems of her parents. Vacationing in Rio de Janeiro, the family begins to fall apart; the father is having a love affair and the mother slips into depression, while Filipa is initiated into her first encounters with love…

"As it is a film about becoming an adult, I began to remember my own childhood and my teenage years," explained Heitor Dhalia. "I lived with my parents near the beaches for over 20 years, but one of them, called Pau Amarelo, near Recife, was special. My parents got divorced when I was 10; I was therefore younger than Filipa in the movie. It was after I began incorporating elements from my childhood that the film began to take shape and gain more meaning – that whole universe of childhood friends, and my parent’s friends, all middle class intellectual petty bourgeoisie. Adrift takes place in the early 80s, a time when major changes were taking place in Brazilian society. Our grandparents had lived together for their whole lives, happy or not; couples began to get divorced in the late 70s, still facing the taboos coming from the 50s and 60s."

As for Vincent Cassel in the role of the father, Heitor Dhalia added: "I saw him giving an interview on TV and I thought to myself, ‘What? Cassel speaks Portuguese?’ I couldn’t think of any Brazilian actor of the right age to play the part that had all his charm…I sent Cassel the screenplay for Adrift through his agent, along with a DVD of my previous film Drained, and he loved it. He thought the film ‘crazy, very weird’. I then went to Paris on a very quick trip, staying only 24 hours just to meet him…Cassel is a generous actor, very expressive, who contributes suggestions to the director."