WORLD PREMIERE: NEWARK INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2020

Experimental, 1h12m

I grew up hearing stories about this hero—an unattainable fable. I was the shadow of a dead man's utopia, as much a double as I was alone. I have no memory of him. My mother and brother, however, remember everything and have never ceased to mourn. Little by little, I transform into the past, in search of my own identity.

I portray Ronaldo through Rita's eyes. Fiction fails as I seek to experience what would have been an ordinary day in their lives, visiting friends on a quiet night. To keep from losing myself, I choose a character that represents me within the plot.

The scene shifts as Vera prepares to investigate traces. Anchored in the present, she narrates stories of future explorers gathering data on what once was. Investigative archives are projected onto her until they take form. The scientific research hits a wall when it encounters my mother’s final letter.

Rita and I watch old family recordings. She perceives a sense of novelty in the images, shifting her perspective from the past to the discovery of the archives. She narrates details without feeling the weight of the images. I feel reassured. It is then that we see the tape with posthumous testimonials from friends and family. She shares that she had often wished she had gone in his place.

Rita prepares to read her farewell letter to Ronaldo. It is just the two of us. Where there was once pain, there is now care—and it is with that care that we listen to every word my mother wrote. 'And only then will you understand the countless possibilities of light upon a moving body. You don't know what this is, do you?' She describes her final moments before letting her love depart with the birds of light at dawn. She questions: 'What are the countless possibilities of light upon a moving body?' The screen changes its scope as we see an almost indistinguishable Super 8 image of the sea, flowing into the wave of a Rita younger than ever.

I return to the space of performance, now conscious of what I represent. I rehearse with the cast; we receive insights from Rita and the director. She tells stories and connects with people. Moments fragment and repeat. I become Ronaldo again; the cast becomes the past. The crew observes. Time is the present. All devices are exposed. This balance allows Vera to reclaim the scene, mourning the loss of the mother she was always compared to.

She returns to her role as investigator. She is no longer here to gather data about my family. While I expose my pain of growing up with references of grief, Vera seeks to see what I do not remember as a catalyst for possibilities in interpreting the 'now.' She reads Ronaldo's love letter to Rita. My father's samba remembers love through the archives. Everything stops when my brother cries.

I turn to Pedro. I vividly remember what it was like growing up by his side. I dedicate all this research to him. I clear the way so that those visiting these memories can speak of their identification with what they’ve seen. We are all brothers, mothers, family. I accept for myself whatever Rita and Pedro have to offer.

I seek myself. I run in circles through an allegory of me. I narrate memories and the lack thereof. We each have our own beginnings, and identity comes with the path we forge. I call out to myself, I investigate myself. I internalize the process I lived through the entire journey that led me to that moment. 'One day, I was born Ronaldo.' I scream to myself. 'His death gave me a warrant—an authorization—to tell everything I tell now.' Vera repeats her lament for the loss of her mother. Rita embraces her. They call for me. We are one.