Guaicurus Street

Guaicurus Street. A prostitution complex in Brazil

The film Guaicurus Street is the result of a broader artistic movement. In 2016, the director João Borges was part of a artist-in-residence program at the prostitution hotels in Belo Horizonte, which led him to make this, his first feature film.

The film exists at the limit between documentary and fiction. The scenes were scripted, rehearsed and repeated, but there was a lot of room for improvisation. The director worked with professional actors and non-actors as an artistic resource to balance the narrative and the recording of real life.

To work with naturalism was his aesthetic choice for the film, approaching the complex of rua Guaicurus through it’s everyday life. The mise-en-scene was made so that it created the feeling of intimacy, hiding the presence of the camera and making the spectator an observer.