Interview with Eliza Capai  “I address injustices that outrage me”

Brazilian director Eliza Capai is back at the Berlinale with her fifth film. “A fabulosa máquina do tempo” (The Fabulous Time Machine) is in the running for the Silver Bear in the Generation Kplus section and is on the list of 16 films from different sections competing for the Berlinale Documentary Film Award.

At the 2019 Berlinale, Eliza Capai presented her documentary Espero tua (re)volta (Your Turn). It focused on schoolchildren in São Paulo fighting for their fundamental right to access education. The film with which the director is returning to the Berlinale 2026 ties in with themes from this film in a certain way, but now from the perspective of children and young people in rural Brazil.

The Fabulous Time Machine is about girls between the ages of seven and eleven. They belong to the first generation born in Piauí, a region of Brazil marked by extreme poverty, but who are now growing up with the right to food, education, and the dream of a different future. In this interview, the director reveals how her film deals with issues such as education, structural machismo, and future prospects against this backdrop.

How would you classify this film in your work as a director?
In 2013, I received a scholarship from the investigative journalism platform Agência Pública to research the impact of the “Bolsa Família” program [a program providing financial support to families living in extreme poverty] on gender relations. “Bolsa Família” involves tiny cash payments per person, yet it has succeeded in removing Brazil from the world map of hunger. The program pays the money to the women. The idea behind the report was to understand what happens in these very poor families when suddenly the woman is the one with a monthly income.

I decided to visit the pilot city for the program: Guaribas, in the Sertão region of Piauí, which once had the lowest Human Development Index (HDI) in Brazil. I spoke with women around the age of 30 and was deeply affected by a phrase I heard repeatedly from several women: "I experienced slavery, without shoes, with only one set of clothes, and without food. " At the same time, I spoke to the daughters of these women: they all had food to eat, went to school, and owned at least rubber sandals and several items of clothing. I felt like I was witnessing the beginning of a major change in Brazil.

What are the important themes in your film production?
Gender issues are very important to me, perhaps because I grew up in Vitória, a city with very high rates of femicide and violence against women in general. In my films, I address the injustices that outrage me. To help me deal with my anger, I observe these injustices up close: I talk to people, try to amplify their voices and think about how we can build a more just world. The fabulous time machine is the crowning achievement of my career to date in rebelling against a deeply unjust society.

How were the protagonists of the film selected?
We held an audiovisual workshop with 15 children aged between seven and eleven. If we wanted to make a film from the children's perspective, we had to understand how they act and how they view issues such as structural machismo and escaping poverty. Naturally, some girls stood out. We realised that when children learn something, they also play with it. We then adopted this as the structure for the film. And we saw how difficult some topics are to deal with. And that some things, because they concern children, did not necessarily have to be verbalised, but had to be experienced. So the fictional scenes were created by the girls?
It was a collaborative effort on several levels. There is a moment of direct cinema when we accompany the girls in their everyday lives at home, playing, at school, in church. And moments that arose as suggestions in the workshops, such as the interviews with the older women. The solutions for the individual scenes came from the girls themselves. In the course of this process, we endeavoured to make a film, but also to take on a socio-educational role, to be there and to seek an exchange through language. On the other hand, we imagined the scenes as a game: we as a team were there and played rather than striving for the perfect scene.

How did you come up with the idea of using the time machine as a narrative device?
In conversations with the girls and in their interviews with their mothers, the image of a time machine emerged – as a playful way of asking questions such as: "If you had a time machine and could travel back in time, what would you do? And if this time machine went into the future, what would you like to do?" During editing, we realised that this device enabled us to tell the complex story of a past marked by misery. And the story of this first generation, growing up with the right to eat, go to school and dream of other futures.

Education, a central theme in Espero tua (re)volta (YourTurn), is once again one of the pillars of the film, but now from the perspective of children rather than young adults.
Espero tua (re)volta was made in the context of a policy that would harm the lives of young people by closing numerous schools. They know that this education is also inadequate and does not address the really important issues. And they realise this when they occupy their schools and begin to organise their own lessons and discuss racism, machismo and the body.

In Guaribas, 98 per cent of children and young people now go to school – which is fantastic given that most of their ancestors were illiterate. But if you ask them about school, they say they would rather blow it up because, like most schools in Brazil and around the world, it is not in tune with the times. The curricula are completely outdated and usually have nothing to do with local realities. Education should be a place of freedom: it should be a place where you can acquire the knowledge you need to apply it in your everyday life and be who you really are.

Throughout your career, Brazilian cinema has gone through different phases of public policy. We are currently experiencing a period of expansion and internationalisation. How do you view this moment?
Espero tua (re)volta was launched in Berlin in 2018, during the second month of Jair Bolsonaro's administration. At that time, our cinema was very strong, but it was then damaged by the closure of the Ministry of Culture. The period that followed [under Bolsonaro] was so repressive that I remember asking the students whether the film should really be shown in Brazil, because I was afraid of political and physical persecution. It was only after the Ministry of Culture was reopened under the subsequent government [under President Lula da Silva] that we regained hope.

I am back in Berlin this year, together with numerous other Brazilian films in the Generation section, and I am observing how much we independent filmmakers from Brazil are trying to break with the dystopias that characterise our recent political history. We are thinking about ways to create positive utopias and ways to listen to children and young people.

February 2026