In both her 2022 debut feature Charcoal (‘Carvão’) and her newest film Toll (‘Pedagio’), which recently premiered at TIFF 2023, filmmaker Carolina Markowicz bravely reproaches the absurdities of life in Brazil today. With her dark mix of comedy and drama and “lush, lived-in photography”, audience are not quite sure if they should be laughing or feeling deeply disturbed about her country’s current state of affairs. 

Charcoal, which won Markowicz the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize for best first-time director, saw a rural family saddled with the prospect of sacrificing an elderly family member in order to house an on-the-run Argentinian drug kingpin in his place. Following quickly in Charcoal’s footsteps, Toll’s conversion therapy scenes are set-pieces in absurdity, played straight to full effect (the plasticine genitalia alone should be up for any “originality in prop design” awards). 

For good reason, Markowicz was recognized in Toronto this year with the TIFF Emerging Talent Award. She is part of a new school of Brazilian filmmakers unafraid to address the disturbing tilt towards fascism and criminal chaos in their country. In Toll, both trends come together as toll-road worker and mother Suellen (Maeve Jinkings) rationalizes pursuing a life of crime to pay for high-cost conversion therapy for her queer son, Tiquinho (Kauan Alvarenga). It’s safe to say that not all goes as Suellen plans.

Now, there have been lots of films about crime and there have been quite a few films on gay conversion therapy, but this is probably the first one I’ve seen with both in the plot. Do you want to talk about really how you arrived at that point as an idea
Sure. Well, I think it fascinates me and it intrigues me in a bad way, how in this conservative society that we live in, that I live in here in Brazil, being gay is seen as more shameful and worse than being a criminal. I mean, it’s insane.

I saw another day an interview of a very well-known killer here in Brazil. He’s a serial killer, it’s a horrible story. He killed more than 30 boys. It was awful. And when he was interviewed by a psychiatrist, he would say that, “Yes, I it that I am a criminal. Yes, I it that I’m a pedophile, but don’t tell me that I’m gay. I’m not gay.”

This is a product of a very, very sick society. Our former president said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay son. I mean, it’s insane. This mom in the film believes that the most shameful thing in her life is having this gay son [so] it’s fine if she gets into illegal things to pay for his salvation. I really wanted to portray this crazy idea of the inversion of values that we are living right now. I think that’s why these two elements would fit well in the film. That’s why I chose to speak about this this way.

I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but there are certain scenes with the conversion therapy that seem so outrageous as to be unbelievable. But then, it sounds like it’s drawn from real life.
Well, a lot of things that sound very crazy and unrealistic here in Brazil are very realistic. It’s insane. I mean, these things that happen in this gay conversion treatment, they are not true. I invented them, but I can tell you that I researched a lot. There are many things that happen here that are true, and they’re equally unbelievable. 

I mean, there is this ex-minister of human rights, one of the most voted senators here in Brazil, who would recommend to everyone that kids should not play with Elsa, the Frozen cartoon of Disney, because she’s a lesbian. There is this guy who goes to the Congress with a wig on and tells people that they shouldn’t be a transgender. I mean, it’s crazy. When you look at that, they’re like, “Oh my god, it’s not serious.” But they are, and they are voted in. These people are the most voted people here. I mean it’s unbelievable, but it happens. So my idea was to portray [that the] unbelievable is totally realistic here.

How did you select your lead actress, Maeve Jinkings?
Well, Maeve is a very well-known actress here in Brazil who has been in a lot of great films. I think she has an amazing ability to go to drama, to humor, to a lot of genres and tones. So we met up in 2016 and we spoke about Charcoal at the time and she was excited to do it. Then it took forever to raise the money, and we spoke a lot.

And then when Toll was funded too, I invited her for the film and then we began this collaboration. I think her work is very exciting. When you see her filmography, she’s very different in all the films, but at the same time very present. You believe in her characters. She’s very good to work with non-actors too, because she is very inspiring for other people in the crew and in the cast. I’m very lucky to be able to work with her.

Toll roads play a big part in the film and form the basis for the crime angle. Did you do research on people who work at toll roads?
Yeah, a lot. We used to go to tolls and ask for permission to enter there. When we were in pre-production, we went there with Maeve and with Aline, her friend, and we would go to the cabins and we stayed there a while with the ladies that worked there. Most of them are women. We would ask them a lot of things: what they eat, when they eat, what they would do in the toll [booth], what time they would wake up and how they look. They’re very vain. It’s very interesting the way they put makeup on. 

Everything was very rich. This universe of toll-booths is very rich because they are there the entire day and thousands of cars by, and some of them don’t even say “good morning”. And at the same time, a lot of people are assholes. They hit on them, they show their dicks. It’s crazy the stories that they have. It’s bizarre. It’s completely crazy. So we were very excited about listening to them and how they deal with everything.

Could you name a film that you would like to recommend—say, a Brazilian film?
There is a film that I love so much called Neon Bull (‘Boi Neon’), from Gabriel Mascaro, [which Jinkings also appears in].

And how about a queer film that you might want to recommend to our ?
Stranger by the Lake, a French film. I love films that don’t make queer people victims. I love that so much.

What is your hope for the future of Brazilian cinema?
Well, we have been through very difficult moments now with the last years with our former president, so now we are trying to rebuild our cinema and we are trying to make it happen again. It’s very difficult, but I hope that we [have] started building it and that we get more . I know that this government s cinema and everything, but everything is so broken that it will take time. I’m happy that we have a lot of voices and diverse voices and a lot of women filmmakers too. I hope that our voices get more and can be heard worldwide and that this government is able to do it [quickly] in of rebuilding resources to our cinema to show our voices worldwide.

It seems like things are swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Do you think that this current positive state, with the supreme court ruling homophobia a crime, is going to last?
I am hopeful. I am. Even though Brazil is a very conservative country, I am hopeful in our powers.