The first feature by the Brazilian filmmaking duo will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Critics' Week sidebar: ‘Disabled bodies are the bodies of the future,’ they say As they worked on their long-gestating first feature, “London,” Brazilian filmmakers Victor Di Marco and Márcio Picoli dove headfirst into cinematic portrayals of disability. What they found was frustrating: often infantilized and overreliant characters in condescending stories that looked at disability as “punishment” or something that “needed fixing.” Their Venice Critics’ Week character study sets out to defy all of these dated and offensive notions. The film follows Di Marco’s titular character, a disabled young adult who works as a dominant at a fetish house.
When London is offered the chance of getting a diagnosis for his disability through a new imaging test, he faces an unexpected dilemma: he craves answers but fears a diagnosis will reduce his identity to a clinical label. Watch an exclusive teaser below. Speaking with Variety ahead of the film’s world premiere in Venice, Picoli says he and partner Di Marco have been working on the script for “London” for many years.
The duo started working on the idea before directing any of their award-winning short films, understanding that they needed to “get experience in the industry but also find our voices as filmmakers” before “jumping headfirst into a feature.” “‘London’ is a project that stands in direct dialogue with a central theme in our career, which is questioning the way disabled people are seen in society as bodies to be fixed,” he adds. We began building this character from this discomfort, with London seeing his disability as a positive and being someone who wants to understand his body while being afraid of being reduced to a diagnosis.” Di Marco echoes this thought, saying the duo wondered “whether we could build a cinematic language that revolved around seeing disability as a particular kind of intelligence and existing.” “I wanted to create a physical language on screen, too, where my body had this particular intelligence and way of living in this world that belonged to me only,” he adds. Before it even began making the festival rounds, “London” has already been compared to the work of Canadian auteur David Cronenberg, which the filmmaking duo sees as an “honor.” “I like hearing the film being compared to Cronenberg because we also feel like it’s an anti-Cronenberg, in a way,” says Picoli.
As Márcio was saying, we echo Cronenberg, but coming from the opposite direction. Cronenberg is fascinated by a body that is taken apart and reimagined. London is looking at the disabled body in the now.” On the subject of now, Picoli adds that “London” also speaks to a “current” moment in society “where we are facing extreme pathologizing.” “We always have something to correct on our bodies.
London having to deal with the anxiety of his diagnosis speaks to this madness we are experiencing where everything needs to be labelled and perfected.” Di Marco chimes in to say he wants to send a “key” message with the film and the touring of the film itself: “Disabled bodies are the bodies of the future. If everything goes well in our lives and we get to live until we’re old, we will all face some level of disability. Accessibility is something that concerns all of us.” “I wanted to cause a friction in the audience,” he adds.
I, too, can be confronted by a diagnosis I may or may not wish to face. What kind of desires and pleasures would I find in such a complicated place? Desire is a very open thing; it is uncontrollable, it doesn’t respond to how we might want to label it.
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