A major note about this year’s New York Film Festival line-up: 19 of 34 directors have never been featured in the Main Slate. Debuting at Locarno before stopping stateside is Transamazonia, Pia Marais’ first feature since 2013’s Layla Fourie, which is seeking distribution. Ahead of these showings, there’s a first trailer from The Party Film Sales that suggests a work of scale and ambition.
Here’s NYFF’s synopsis: “In the eerie quiet of the vast, verdant Amazon jungle, a young girl stirs to life. Rescued by a member of the local Indigenous tribe, the child, Rebecca, is the only survivor of a plane crash. Years pass, and Rebecca (Helena Zengel) has become something of a local celebrity after her father (Jeremy Xido), an American missionary, has cast the teenager as a faith healer capable of miracles. Just as Rebecca is beginning to have a will of her own, doubting her father and the role in which she’s been cast, another crisis emerges when illegal loggers encroach on the land, threatening the livelihoods of the local tribe, and forcing emotional, familial, and racial reckonings. South Africa–born director Pia Marais has fashioned a mesmerizing, entrancingly photographed moral tale with no easy answers that is also a singular coming-of-age fable.”
Watch the trailer: