Pedro Waddington and Rebeca Diniz’s “Fuse” (“Precisamos Falar”) begins with a horrifying sequence: Three teenage cousins harass an unhoused immigrant sleeping at an ATM. The consequences of the chilling act that follows guide the ethical dilemma at the heart of their feature debut, playing in competition at the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival.
Starring two of Brazil’s most popular actors, Marjorie Estiano (“Under Pressure”) and Alexandre Nero (“Empire”), the psychological thriller is inspired by Herman Koch’s best-selling novel “The Dinner” and adapted to the screen by Sérgio Goldenberg and George Moura for leading Brazilian production house Conspiração Filmes. It starts from the shocking crime to chronicle the differing reactions from the two sets of parents of the children involved, a middle-class conservative couple, and a much richer pairing that includes a politician running for governor.
Speaking with Variety ahead of Huelva, the directors recall first joining the project after Andrucha Waddington (“The House of Sand,” “Vitória”) turned it down due to scheduling conflicts. The veteran then came on board as a producer, with Diniz and Pedro Waddington working on the already existent script alongside the writing team to make it “more their own.”
“It was a slightly unusual project for a first film because we had to appropriate the script enough to make it feel like it was our project, too,” says Waddington. “The project was also conceived as a hybrid film to work both in cinemas and on TV, so it came with a few guidelines and a particular language. We tried to translate what was on the page into our own language. Sergio, the scriptwriter, was incredibly generous in this process and managed to make the film feel our own, not just like hired guns.”
The directing duo first worked together on Globoplay’s hit procedural series “Under Pressure,” where they also worked with Estiano and Andrucha Waddington. “Our work on the series allowed us to gain Conspiração’s confidence to take on this project,” says Diniz. The director points out how the language of film and television is becoming more and more intertwined, allowing creatives to be more flexible when it comes to projects.
“I think series are increasingly adopting the language of filmmaking, we see great names of cinema making television today because it’s not only something the market wants, but audiences too,” she adds. “I think we need to have a conversation on the regulation of streamers, but that’s for another day. For now, I think it’s interesting how we can have different languages and formats available to us creatively as directors.”
The duo’s work on “Under Pressure” would also come to influence the tone of “Fuse,” says Diniz. “Our first work with ‘Under Pressure’ very much spoke to Brazilian society through a social drama format, and ‘Fuse’ is not far from that idea of having cinema in a direct dialogue with society. We are interested in this kind of depth and investigating human nature.”
Asked about how they felt stepping into genre, Waddington says the adaptation came to them already packaged as a psychological thriller, but they decided to inch it closer to social satire. “Marjorie’s character brings up these ludicrous ideas as arguments to save her son, and it is all a bit comical. At the same time, it remains realistic because people like the ones on screen exist. Over-protectors, aggressive parents, they are out there, so we wanted to mix these elements in the film.”
The tone of the film lends itself to complex ethical discussions, not only on the crime and its consequences, but also on Brazil’s current political situation. Although nodding to the political polarization of a post-Bolsonaro Brazil, the film never openly addresses the country’s former president and his adopted right-wing rhetoric, which would come to divide families and friends across the nation in the years since his mandate.
“One of the main strengths of the film is that the discussion at the heart of the narrative is not about left or right,” says Waddington. “It’s not about politics exactly, but about polarization, represented here by these two families. This familial crumbling due to politics is very present today. When it comes to the conflict between the parents, stances become murkier. People stop believing in their values to save their own children.”
Diniz echoes that thought: “When children are involved in a crime, ideologies lose their place to personal interest and privileges. These tensions between left and right-wing politics are against the backdrop of this big ethical dilemma. There is a space for people to really walk into these characters’ shoes and wonder whether or not they would be ethical in this situation.”
As for having “Fuse” selected to play in competition at Huelva, Diniz says it is “an accomplishment in itself.” “It means being able to open a direct dialogue between our work and a demanding, diverse audience of cinephiles. It’s important to bring these conversations around Brazilian society and cinema to international spaces. This way, we can have an impact beyond the cinema screen.”
“Brazil is undergoing an incredible moment, winning big at festivals and major awards events,” adds Waddington. “It’s great when it comes to bringing attention and visibility to our cinema.”