Madame Satã is a story about João Francisco dos Santos – a legendary mugger who dreams about performing on stage. Its action takes place in the 1930s and 1940s in Lapa, a poor neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro inhabited mainly by thieves and prostitutes. Dos Santos is unjustly accused of theft and imprisoned. Having served his sentence, he starts to perform as a drag queen at a bar where he creates an eccentric character – Madame Satã. This sensuous, frantic film departs from linear narrative, the camera documents the colourful life of Lapa, the world of pimps, prostitutes, samba dancers, bars and brothels full of smoke and the smell of cheap perfumes.
The film Madame Sata was chosen by Marcelo Evelin.
KARIM AÏNOUZ (born 1966) is a Brazilian director and visual artist. The premiere of Madame Satã, his first feature film, took place in 2002 at the Cannes Festival. His short films and installations have been shown in a number of places, including the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial, São Paulo Biennial and Sharjah Biennial. In 2012 he was invited to become a juror at the Cannes Festival and took part in the project Cathedrals of Culture, a 3D documentary TV series, produced by Wim Wenders and directed by Karim Aïnouz, among others. He was also the co-author of the screenplay for Walter Salles’ film Behind the Sun (2001).