Name: NZIFF: The Blue Trail (2)
Start: 2025-09-07T03:00:00+12:00
Location: Century Theatre Napier

In a future world where senior citizens are banished from society, a rebellious matriarch instead embarks on a fantastic Amazon adventure. Gabriel Mascaro’s film is an ode to life and freedom with no age restrictions.
In a dystopian Brazil of the near future, senior citizens are asked by the authoritarian government to “voluntarily” retire to a colony removed from the rest of the society. Indomitable 77-year-old Tereza has no intention of complying with the draconian law and embarks on a clandestine journey through the waters of the Amazon River. Her adventurous escape is punctuated by surreal, hilarious and transformative meetings along the banks of the vast river and the mystical forests surrounding it.
Gabriel Mascaro’s fifth and most accomplished feature deservedly nabbed the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Steered by a terrific and endearing performance from Denise Weinberg, The Blue Trail is an equally poetic and earthly ode to the irrepressible will to live (and of misbehaving too!). It reminds us that there is no age limit to take one’s own life in their hands. Gently subversive, Mascaro’s film is an invigorating gem that will make you leave the cinema with the desire to follow on Tereza’s (blue) trail… — Paolo Bertolin