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Ecstasy

SYNOPSIS

Fiction | 75’ | color | 35mm/DCP | Brazil | 2020

Clara confronts fear and vulnerability by crafting a world in which she can control everything — even her own hunger. But a life of restriction and self-inflicted torment can take on a deceivingly seductive form. Until that haunting delirium breaks, she will push her body to the brink.

Available for rental on Vimeo On Demand.

CREDITS

Director Moara Passoni

Producers Moara Passoni, Petra Costa

Cast Clara Rossetti, Alice Valares, Gigi Paladino, Unknown Actor, Susana Priz

Co-producer Sara Dosa

Production Company Busca Vida Filmes

Executive Producers Emilia Ramos, Leda Stopazzoli, Paula Pripas

Screenplay and Research Daniela Capelato, Henrique P. Xavier, Maurício Ayer, Moara Passoni, with contributions from women who have experienced anorexia

Cinematography Janice D’Avila

Editing Fernando Epstein

Sound Design Cécile Chagnaud

Sound Mixing Edson Secco

Original Score Ismael Pinkler

Soundtrack “I’m Waiting Here” by David Lynch and Lykke Li

  • Êxtase, Moara Passoni, 2020

    "Êxtase is not a denunciation. It’s a listening — a delicate, poetic whisper that flows across the different stages of Clara’s growth. Like threads in a knitted tapestry, image and sound reveal the control over her internal and external routines, in which she fights herself to avoid needing the other."

  • Êxtase, Moara Passoni, 2020

    "In Êxtase, Moara creates a dreamlike and autobiographical project at the intersection of documentary and fiction."

  • Êxtase, Moara Passoni, 2020

    "Passoni lived through anorexia in all its intensity and saw echoes of her experience in the stories of others. Out of her journey and their testimonies, Êxtase took shape."

  • Êxtase, Moara Passoni, 2020

    "With its full transcendental force, Êxtase lives up to its name — working to blur the lines between inside and out, truth and fiction, individual and collective, bringing them closer in powerfully poetic ways."

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

2020

Porto/Post/Doc – SPAutores Cinema Falado Award – Best Film

This Human WorldUp&Coming Competition Nominee

International Women's Film Festival SeoulDiscovery Award Nominee

Millennium Docs Against GravityTVP Kultura Award & Audience Award Nominee – Best Film

Biografilm FestivalBest Film Unipol Award – International Competition Nominee

CPH:DOXCPH:DOX Award Nominee

Lucas – International Festival of Films for Children and Young PeopleYoungsters Award Section 16+

São Paulo International Film FestivalWinner: Abbracine Prize – Best Debut Feature / Nominee: New Directors Competition – Best Documentary

Montréal Festival of New CinemaWinner: Daniel Langlois Innovation Award / Nominee: Louve d'Or – Best Film

2021

Female Filmmakers Festival BerlinBest of Festival Feature Nominee / Best Newcomer Performance Nominee (Victoria Maranho)

Valdivia International Film FestivalWinner: Pudu Award – Best Film, Youth Feature Competition

Cinema Jove – Valencia International Film FestivalWinner: Prix Cima / Winner: Youth Jury Award – Best Film / Nominee: Moon of Valencia – Best Film

Tromsø International Film FestivalAurora Award Nominee

MOARA PASSONI

Moara Passoni is a filmmaker, writer, and producer whose work navigates the space between cinematic essay and political inquiry into human experience. She holds a degree in Social Sciences from the University of São Paulo, a master’s in Documentary Theory from Unicamp, and an MFA in Screenwriting and Directing from Columbia University. She also studied Aesthetics at Paris 8, Communication and Body Arts at PUC-SP, and screenwriting at EICTV, Cuba. She co-wrote and associate produced The Edge of Democracy (2019), an Academy Award nominee and Peabody Award winner, and is a longtime collaborator of director Petra Costa, having also worked on Olmo and the Seagull (2015) and Elena (2012).

In 2020, her hybrid debut Êxtase premiered in the main competition at CPH:DOX and went on to screen at MoMA’s Doc Fortnight, Visions du Réel, and numerous other festivals, earning critical acclaim and international awards. Named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine, she received the Jelinek Award for artistic excellence at Columbia.

She is currently developing her first narrative feature Cost of Living — supported by Berlinale Talents, TorinoScriptLab, Projeto Paradiso — a series on the historic Corinthians Democracy movement, and a feature film about DJ Alok, co-written with Indigenous leader Célia Xakriabá. Moara is a founding member of the BR Filmmakers Collective and splits her time between Brazil, New York, and the ever-expanding terrains of political imagination.

DOWNLOADS

Ecstasy © 2009 by Busca Vida is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0