More than 35 years ago, the late Huub Bals—creator and director of International Film Festival Rotterdam—began setting up what was then known as the Tarkovsky Fund, a body intended to support filmmakers in the developing world. Following his death, the fund was renamed the Hubert Bals Fund, or HBF, and since its launch it has assisted in the production of countless critical hits, including Memoria, Monos and Japón. Both IFFR and the HBF are involved in Julia de Simone's long-gestating feature debut Formosa Beach: an HBF grant was awarded to the project way back in 2014, with the finished film premiering at IFFR 2024.
Formosa Beach examines, inter alia, colonial history in Brazil, as seen through the eyes of Brazilian native de Simone, and the resulting film is a languid reflection on the vagaries of both time and memory. The temporally fragmented narrative of Formosa Beach follows the journey of Muanza (Lucília Raimundo), a woman trafficked from the Kingdom of Kongo to Rio de Janeiro (while the Portuguese influence in Kongo was intricately linked with commerce, religion and politics, it was slavery that left an indelible mark). In Brazil, Muanza meets fellow slave Kieza (Samira Carvalho), with whom she plots an escape.
The now-defunct Kingdom of Kongo encompassed parts of several present-day countries (Angola, DR Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, and Gabon); established in the late 14th century, the kingdom was a centralised state with a sophisticated governmental structure, and its wealth was mostly founded on nefarious trades (ivory, slaves). Many Kongolese people like Muanza were forcibly taken to Brazil, where, despite the brutal conditions they had to endure, they contributed significantly to the country's culture; indeed, the influence of the Kongolese can be seen in several aspects of contemporary Brazilian life, including music and cuisine.
Julia de Simone's dedication to examining the legacies of slavery and colonialism—and their impact on current society—is obvious in a film in which the two strong, stoic protagonists are boxed in to both their environment and the film's Academy ratio. Formosa Beach's back-and-forth narrative and critique of European imperialism combine in a way that recalls Bertrand Bonello's unsettling Zombi Child, an altogether more sophisticated picture. De Simone's ambitious film is better in idea than execution: it works well enough as an aesthetically pleasing mood piece, yet its story feels both underpowered and undertold.
