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Off the Fence (OTF), the leading storytelling media group and co-producer of Oscar-winning documentary “My Octopus Teacher,” has boarded Viviane D’Avilla’s “Let Us Be.” The documentary, which world premiered at Raindance
and will have its Latin American premiere at the Rio Film Festival, follows the lives of intersex individuals across the world.
D’Avilla’s directorial debut stemmed from research that started back in 2017. The director first explored the subject with the short doc “GOPI,” expanding her work on the subject in the decade that followed. The resulting feature centers on the challenges, joys and intimate journeys of being born with a body outside the physical definitions of male or female, explored through the lives of intersex individuals in India, Brazil and the United States.
“Let Us Be” is produced by Mariana Marinho and Marco Abujamra of Dona Rosa Films (Brazil) and Iz Web of Social Construct. Pioneering intersex activist and author Hida Viloria is an executive producer alongside Zak Kilberg of Social Construct. OTF will kick off sales at Mipcom this October.
“The term intersex is still very much unknown or at least misunderstood, and I was blown away by the film’s ability to educate and empower those within it,” said Loren Baxter, VP of acquisitions and co-productions for Off the Fence. “The characters are warm and easy to relate to; the film exudes positivity and love, and I came away so inspired. The team behind the film has created an intimate and profoundly powerful film, and we expect a lot of interest at Mipcom.”
“There’s still so much confusion about the intersex community,” said Viloria. “I was drawn to this project because of the way its multi-continental focus demonstrates that we’re a natural part of the entire global population, not just a modern, Western phenomenon.”
Other subjects in the film include Carolina Iara, who made history as one of the first intersex individuals to hold a parliamentary position in Latin America, and Indian community leader Aanandh Rajappan, who confronts the stigma and medical violence faced by intersex people in his home country.
“We wanted to make a film that moves beyond the way intersex bodies have historically been defined by medicine or society, and instead allows people to define themselves with dignity and autonomy,” said D’Avilla. “At its heart, the film asks a very simple question: can we learn to embrace human bodies as they are, rather than forcing them to fit the categories we have created?”
Producer Marinho said the team took “great care to create a film for a broad audience and to present a little-known subject matter in a clear, intimate way, drawing the viewer into the characters’ world.”
“The decision to set the film in such distinct countries stemmed from a desire to bring the aesthetics and knowledge of other cultures — as well as different colors and lighting — to the screen,” she added. “Characters in Brazil, India, and the United States offer a wide-ranging perspective on the theme, finding common ground amidst their differences. We produced a film for the world.”
Marinho has led Dona Rosa Filmes for 20 years, transforming it into one of Rio de Janeiro’s leading independent documentary production companies. Fellow producer and founder of Dona Rosa Filmes, Abujamra also co-wrote Fernando Meirelles, Rodrigo Pesavento and Ernesto Solis’s “Animal Race,” which premiered at SXSW and became the most-watched non-English-language film on Prime Video worldwide in its opening week.
“Let Us Be” was produced and completed with public funds managed by the Brazilian National Film Agency Ancine, with additional coin provided by FSA (Fundo Setorial do Audiovisual), Banco Regional de Desenvolvimento do Extremo Sul (BRDE) and RioFilme.
