Housemaids
Brazil • 1h 15m
Directed by Gabriel Mascaro • Documentary • 2012 • 76 minutes
Housemaids are an integral part of the household in Brazil, and participate in the day-to-day life of the family. The employment of housemaids is almost obligatory among the middle and upper classes of the country. The vast majority of these housemaids are black women, who face high levels of inequality based on their gender, race and social class. Their role in the household raises important questions about public and private space, endurance and choice, and labor and family life.
For HOUSEMAIDS, director Gabriel Mascaro asked seven adolescents to film their family's housemaids for one week, and hand the footage over to him. Their images uncover the complex relationship that exists between housemaids and their employers, a relationship that confuses intimacy and power in the workplace and provides us with an insight into the echoes of a colonial past that linger in contemporary Brazil.
HOUSEMAIDS exposes and explores a hidden daily reality of Brazilian life.
"No other film has ever managed to portray as deeply what is ingrained in the Brazilian unconsciousness." -Luiz Carlos Merten, Estadao
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