🤩 Gugu’s World (Feito Pipa),
dir. Allan Deberton, 2026, Brazil, 93 min., in Portuguese with subtitles
Friday, June 19, 2026, 7:00 PM, BAMPFA Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
screens with the short 🙂 The Emancipation of Mimi (A Emancipação de Mimi), dir. Marcelo Pereira, 2025, Portugal, 13 min., in Portuguese with subtitles; (see below)
🇺🇸 U.S. premiere
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| Gugu’s World (Feito Pipa) |
Frameline blurb: Caught between a magical upbringing with his grandmother, Dilma (Divine Love’s Teca Pereira), and an uncertain future, 11-year-old Gugu (a wonderful Yuri Gomes) plays soccer fabulously — glitter and all. But when Dilma’s Alzheimer’s disease worsens, he finds his childhood upended. Afraid that he’ll be sent to live with his father (Lázaro Ramos of the queer Brazilian classic Madame Satã) and his father’s new family, Gugu tries to hide signs of Dilma’s illness from the disapproving outside world.
Winner of the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale and the Premio Maguey Awards for Best Feature and Best Performance (shared by Gomes and Pereira) at the Guadalajara International Film Festival, Brazilian filmmaker Allan Deberton’s latest queer story is a tender-yet-powerful look at what it means to come of age and find yourself, all while trying to keep your increasingly unstable world whole.
My take: First, a quick language note. The original title of the film is Feito Pipa, which translates as Like a Kite. The location for this film is in the state of Ceará, on the Atlantic coast just south of the equator.
The young star of the film, Yuri Gomes, is indeed a treasure. He carries scene after scene with the same grace with which he dances. Gugu is facing a terrible dilemma. Living with his grandmother is no longer tenable due to her advancing dementia, but he doesn’t want to live with his father — not exactly an ogre, but quite unsympathetic to Gugu’s fabulousness. It’s a squeeze that we, the audience, feel viscerally, as Gugu’s one refuge from the bullies at school and the general harshness of the outside world slips away from him. And yet there is hope, as Gugu finds allies, or at least sympathetic ears, in unexpected places. The story is powerful and the performances exceptional, clearly placing Gugu’s World in the category of must see.
• IMDb • Official website • Filmmaker • Instagram • Facebook • preview • Wikipedia • Lazaro Ramos, Madame Sata, Ceara, Madame Sata •
🙂 The Emancipation of Mimi (A Emancipação de Mimi), dir. Marcelo Pereira, 2025, Portugal, 13 min., in Portuguese with subtitles
🇺🇸 U.S. premiere
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The Emancipation of Mimi (A Emancipação de Mimi) |
My take: It’s an okay little short film, but I can’t quite see what it’s doing at an LGBTQ+ film festival, because I really don’t think we should feed the stereotype that little boys who are obsessed with pop divas are going to grow up to be gay. We only know that Miguel is in a Catholic school and loves Mariah Carey, nothing more, so the only honest answer to “Will Mimi turn out to be gay?” is “🤷 Uh, I dunno.” So I’ll give it a weak recommended if you’re just looking for a small bit of comedy fluff, but if you’re looking for queer content, keep looking, you can find much better.
• IMDb • Official website • Filmmaker • Instagram • Facebook • preview • other •
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