Um filme do mangue do Recife é o grande vencedor do Festival do Rio: a história em inglês, no seu nível

Five awards for A Margem do Rio: a debut rooted in Recife's mangroves

Few debut features gather this kind of momentum. A Margem do Rio, the first feature by Enock Carvalho and Matheus Farias, emerged as the big winner of the 28th Festival do Rio, collecting five awards.

The haul included the Redentor trophy for Best Fiction Feature in the Première Brasil competition and the Felix Prize for Best Brazilian Film. Luciana Baseggio won for cinematography and Moabe Filho, Guma Farias, Daniel Turini and João Victor Coura for sound, while Best Supporting Actress was split between Renna Costa, Artia and Ísis Broken.

The film unfolds in Recife's mangroves, where Izaquiel (Caique Copque), a young general services assistant, meets Jeremias (Ítalo Martins), a mysterious fisherman, in secret at night. When an outside threat brings violence, the two set out through the mangrove, where reality and myth blur, in a story about identity, sexuality and life on the margins.

Speaking to Metrópoles, Carvalho said their city, Recife, had been the main inspiration, its rivers and mangroves shaping the narrative. Farias described the film as born of a dream the couple had been nurturing for almost seven years, as partners in life and in work.

The prizes capped a festival that, according to its organizers, screened 101 Brazilian films, 45 of them in competition, and drew more than 150,000 people. In Pernambuco, the film reaches cinemas on January 7, 2027.

There is a lesson here for language learners: the most powerful material is often the most familiar. Learning to describe your own city, its rivers, streets and people, in another language is not a beginner's exercise; it is where real self-expression starts.