Ana & Oto
Director: Isabela Costa
Brazil, 2025, 17 min
Shooting Format:16mm
Festival Year:2026
Category:Experimental
Genres:Comedy, Drama, Experimental, Narrative
Cast:Anna Dória, Joji Cozzolino
Crew:Writer: Isabela Costa. Producers: Isabela Costa, João de Queiroz.
Email:imoreiralcosta@gmail.com
Synopsis
In a restless Rio de Janeiro, two friends drift through a relationship defined by inertia. As the city pulses with chaotic energy, their emotional stagnation begins to fracture, exposing a generation caught between disillusionment and the possibility of change.
Trailer
About the director
Isabela Costa is a filmmaker born in Rio de Janeiro and currently a MFA candidate in Film/Video at California Institute of the Arts. She believes that humor and magical realism are perfect tools to reach the insanity of real problems. She is also interested in the concept of Antropofagia, explored by Brazilian modernists and later by the tropicalists. Isabela is working in 16mm and digital to create dystopian universes that touch the expectations and anxiety of young generations.
Filmmaker's note
Ana & Oto emerged from my experience of Brazil’s political transformations from the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff to the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Alongside these shifts, I observed a generational transition from active dissent to a more passive form of disillusionment. So, I wanted to confront this inertia through the lens of Brazilian art movements that once embodied radical form, particularly Cinema Marginal and Tropicália.
Formally, the film navigates in chaos and DIY philosophy, through hand-processed 16mm textures and collage. I also aim to disrupt passive spectatorship and invite a more active form of engagement using metacinema and direct address.
The relationship between Ana and Oto mirrors a broader emotional paralysis, one that goes against the overwhelming vitality of Rio de Janeiro, a city that refuses stillness. At its core, Ana & Oto is also deeply personal and an attempt to translate that sense of recognition into the unstable, contradictory landscape of Rio.