Descoloniza, Weltfilm Board Lucas Weglinski’s ‘The Night is a Farce’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Lucas Weglinski’s fiction feature debut “The Night is a Farce” (“A Noite É Uma Farsa”) has been picked up by burgeoning Brazilian distribution company Descoloniza Filmes, which has worked on projects such as IDFA winner “Canuto’s Transformation.”

Selected for the pix-in-post WIP Iberoamericana showcase at Sanfic Industria, the industry arm of Chile’s Santiago International Film Festival (Sanfic), the film has also recently welcomed a German co-producer in Berlin-based Weltfilm (“Maia – Portrait With Hands,” Deavastated”). 

“The Night is a Farce” trails Yá, an Indigenous girl with no memories, and Jorge, a non-binary artist, two people trying to survive the criminalization of their lives while being pursued by a so-called “TikTok policeman” — a national celebrity who illegally turns his young following into a surveillance network. While Yá searches for her identity through dreams of a Jaguar Woman, Jorge guides her through the labyrinths of the biggest metropolis in South America.

Weglinski — who previously directed docs “A Música Natureza de Léa Freire” and “Máquina do Desejo – 60 Anos do Teatro Oficina” — wrote the film alongside prominent Pataxó multidisciplinary artist and creative Tamikuã Txihi, who also stars in the project as the Jaguar Woman. Txihi is a political and spiritual leader who has exhibited at Pinacoteca São Paulo, Caixa Cultural Brasília, Galeria Carmo Johnson Projects and Tufts University Art Galleries, Boston. In 2022, she was nominated for the prestigious PIPA Award.

Joining Txihi in the cast are Jera Poty and Cacica Arapoty, also leaders from the Jaraguá Indigenous Territory, as well as rapper and artist Novíssimo Edgar. The main cast, comprised mostly of non-actors, is joined by veterans Rodrigo Odé dos Santos, Luciano Chirolli and Mafalda Pequenino. You can check an exclusive new artwork for the film below:

In his director’s statement, Weglinski says the film is inspired by “rebels” like David Lynch, Rogerio Sganzerla, and Pier Paolo Pasolini and “blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality, whether through non-professional actors or by documenting these performers as they bring their real lives into the story.”

“We aimed to transcend traditional narrative and create a visceral, immersive experience,” he continues. “The themes of identity, coming of age, state violence, punitive culture, the criminalization of existence, and social media, when juxtaposed with ancestral wisdom and worldviews, resonate deeply with global realities. This makes the film particularly relevant in today’s ‘interconnected’ world. It’s an interrogation of our era, where basic rights, hard-won through centuries of struggle and massacres, now face threats across the planet.”  

Producer Heloisa Jinzenji tells Variety “The Night is a Farce” addresses minority rights by “centering Indigenous, Black, and LGBTQIA+ voices, including a queer male rapper and a veteran LGBTQIA+ actor.”

“Directed by a queer filmmaker, the film highlights intersectional struggles, emphasizing land rights, cultural preservation, and the reclaiming of identity,” she continues. “It challenges systemic racism, colonialism, and queerphobia, showcasing solidarity among marginalized groups while advocating for equity, representation, and the celebration of diverse identities in a deeply unequal society.”

Speaking about Descololoniza Films, Weglinski says: “[Descoloniza] has stood out in the national market for its vast experience in the industry and cinema circuit in a continental-sized country like Brazil. Above all, [they stand out] for their unprecedented strategies to break through the usual barriers and reach a wide audience—securing prominent spaces not only in traditional media, such as the press, but also in new media and platforms—an achievement that, for us, could not be greater.”

Descoloniza Filmes’s director Ibirá Machado told Variety that “The Night is a Farce” is a “project that matches many layers of our curatorship, with protagonists of extreme decolonial relevance both as characters and real-life artists. Lucas has the ability to speak to our reality in a very symbolic but also explicit way, in perfect harmony and with great precision.”

“The Night is a Farce” is a co-production between Brazil’s Agalma Filmes and Loma Filmes with Germany’s Weltfilm, with Fernando Nogueira, Heloisa Jinzenji, Kristina Konrad and Lucas Weglinski as producers. The project won the Best Fiction WIP Award in Spain’s Málaga Festival, and Weglinski was recently selected as part of Cannes’s Marché du Film’s Producers’ Network. The film is currently in the last stages of post-production, with the team hopeful to cross the final line through partnerships made in Santiago.