''The Year My Parents Went on Vacation'' ( pt, O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias) is a 2006 Brazilian
drama film directed by
Cao Hamburger. The screenplay, which took four years to be completed, was written by Hamburger,
Adriana Falcão,
Claudio Galperin,
Anna Muylaert and
Bráulio Mantovani
Bráulio Mantovani (born July 1963 in São Paulo) is a Brazilian screenwriter and author.
Graduating in Portuguese Language and Literature from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, he began his career writing professionally for ...
.
It was submitted by the
Ministry of Culture for the
2007 Academy Award for
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
. This choice was unexpected, since it was thought that
José Padilha's ''
Elite Squad
''Elite Squad'' ( pt, Tropa de Elite, ) is a 2007 Brazilian crime film based on the novel ''Elite da Tropa'' by Luiz Eduardo Soares, André Batista, and Rodrigo Pimentel. Directed by José Padilha from a screenplay by Padilha, Bráulio Manto ...
'' would be submitted.
Plot
The story takes place entirely during a few months in 1970, in the city of
São Paulo. Mauro, a 12-year-old boy, is suddenly deprived of the company of his young parents, Bia and Daniel Stein, who are political activists on the run from the harsh
military government
A military government is generally any form of government that is administered by military forces, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and whether this government is formed by natives or by an occup ...
, which was strongly repressing
leftist
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
s all over the country. Against this backdrop of fear and political persecution, the country is at the same time bursting with enthusiasm for the upcoming
World Cup, to be held in Mexico, the first one to be transmitted live via
satellite.
Unable to take care of their only child, the Steins, who live in
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte (, ; ) is the sixth-largest city in Brazil, with a population around 2.7 million and with a metropolitan area of 6 million people. It is the 13th-largest city in South America and the 18th-largest in the Americas. The metropol ...
, drive all the way to São Paulo to deliver the boy to his paternal grandfather, Mótel, who is a
barber. To their son, they say they will travel on vacation and promise to return for the World Cup games. However, the grandfather dies on the same day the boy arrives, and he is left clueless and without support in
Bom Retiro, a working-class neighborhood inhabited mainly by
Jews, many of whom speak
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
, an unknown language to the boy. As his father is Jewish, the close-knit Bom Retiro community rally in support of the child and Shlomo, a solitary elder and religious Jew who was a close neighbor and friend of Mauro's grandfather, assumes the care of Mauro.
Mauro is a
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
enthusiast and wants to be a
goalkeeper. He gradually mixes in with other neighborhood children and becomes acquainted with a number of colorful characters, including Hanna, a girl his age; Ítalo, a politically active student from the
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo; Irene, a beautiful female bartender and her boyfriend, the
mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
ace goalkeeper of one of the local football teams; the local
rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as '' semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form o ...
and assorted Jewish elders,
Italian immigrants, and so on.
To Mauro's great disappointment, his parents neither appear as promised at the World Cup nor give any notice. Fearing the worst, Shlomo starts to investigate by himself and is arrested by the political police because of his meddling. Finally, he achieves the release of Mauro's mother, who is severely ill after the prison term. Her reunion with her child happens on the very same day as Brazil's final victory at the World Cup. (Mauro's father disappears while in the dictatorship's clutches, never to return.) At the end of the film, Mauro says farewell to his recent friends and playmates as he and his mother leave Bom Retiro and prepare to go into exile.
Cast
* Michel Joelsas as Mauro
* Germano Haiut as Shlomo
* Daniela Piepszyk as Hanna
*
Caio Blat as Ítalo
*
Liliana Castro as Irene
*
Paulo Autran as Mótel, Mauro's grandfather
*
Simone Spoladore
Simone Spoladore (born 29 October 1979) is a Brazilian actress. Her first film role was Ana in ''To the Left of the Father''.
Spoladore won the Gramado Film Festival’s award for Best Actress in 2010.
Filmography
*''To the Left of the Father' ...
as Bia, Mauro's mother
* Eduardo Moreira as Daniel, Mauro's father
Production
The film is semi-autobiographical; the director's parents,
physicists and professors at the
University of São Paulo, were briefly arrested by the military in the same year of 1970, accused of lending support to "subversives". The couple's five children — including Cao Hamburger, the director, who was 8 years old — came under the care of their grandmothers, one Jewish and one Italian Catholic.
Critical reception
The film has received mostly positive reviews. Based on 52 reviews collected by the film review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of critics gave ''The Year My Parents Went on Vacation'' a positive review (43 "Fresh"; 9 "Rotten"), with an average rating of 7.1/10.
Deborah Young of ''
Variety'' hailed the film as "sensitive, delicate and involving", going on to say that "Hamburger feels no need (nor is there any) to underline the obvious. He has a magician's ability to keep the story light and believable". It also notes that "the humorous central part of the screenplay is bereft of surprises".
The film was picked as Brazil's submission for the 2007
Academy Award for
Best Foreign Language Film
This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards.
Best Actor/Best Actress
*See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...
(and was shortlisted alongside nine other films), and was released on February 8, 2008 in the United States and Canada.
Awards and nominations
* Audience Award - 2006
Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival
* Best Film - 2006
São Paulo International Film Festival
* Audience Award - 2007
Lima International Film Festival, Peru
* Special Jury Award - 2006 São Paulo International Film Festival
* Best Cinematography - 2007
ABC Cinematography Award
* Best Art Direction - 2007 ABC Cinematography Award
* Best Young Performer - 2007
Young Artist Awards
* Best Editing - 2007 ABC Cinematography Award
* Best Sound - 2007 ABC Cinematography Award
* Best Screenplay - 2007
São Paulo Association of Art Critics Awards
* Golden Bear (Nominated) - 2007
Berlin International Film Festival
See also
*
References
External links
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Year My Parents Went on Vacation
2006 films
2006 drama films
2000s coming-of-age drama films
2000s Portuguese-language films
Brazilian coming-of-age drama films
Films about Brazilian military dictatorship
Films about missing people
Films directed by Cao Hamburger
Films set in 1970
Films set in São Paulo
Films shot in São Paulo