Release Date: 18 November 2018 (Netherlands). Dona Alva (aka The Macho Woman) lives surrounded by palm and banana trees on a hill in the Brazilian hinterland. She fell in love when she was 11, but entered into a loveless marriage just three years later. Now in her eighties, she has lived a life of hard work, her husband is dead and she’s alone again. Grieving but resolute, she moves down to the little village at the foot of the hill, where she must reinvent her life. Unmoved by the concerns of family members, Alva falls for a good-natured handyman 40 years her junior. Has she found true love at last?
Following her film Cargo about the world of men on a ship in the North Sea, Marina Meijer once again finds a sensitive soul in a place where it might be least expected. For a stubborn woman like Alva, who’s used to doing things her own way, age is unimportant. We see her face light up in this portrait that unfolds like a melancholy ballad.
won prizes
NL - Amsterdam International Docu Film Festival IDFA selection
