Saturday 21.11. | 20:30 | Kino Ponrepo

A warm-hearted love letter to São Paulo, wine and people who aren’t afraid to take risks.

Isabel knows everything there is to know about wine. At a Michelin-starred restaurant in São Paulo, she advises guests on what to pour into their glasses, but her domineering boss leaves little room for her own taste. She dreams of opening her own bar, where she will have the final say. As she searches for an investor, she walks a fine line between careful calculation and reckless courage, while her idealism collides with the realities of running a business, where success can go bad just as quickly as an opened bottle of wine.

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The film premiered at Berlinale in the Panorama section, with critics particularly praising the lead performance and its delicate blend of earthy realism and romance. Shot on 16mm film using a camera once assembled by Walter Salles and Walter Carvalho (Central Station), its grainy image is meant to evoke unfiltered natural wine: imperfect, alive and full of flavour.

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Fun fact: Marina Person, who not only plays Isabel but also co-wrote the screenplay, was a face of Brazilian MTV in the 1990s. She herself dreamed for years of opening a similar establishment, making her character more like her than one might expect.