“Mars One”, Brazil’s submission for this year’s International Oscar category, is a family drama about a boy who wants to colonize the red planet. The title suggests science fiction, which director Gabriel Martins found intriguing.
“It’s interesting that at first, it was presented as the title of the actual mission that (real life people) were planning to do to colonize Mars,” Martins told TheWrap’s JoeMcGovern during a Q&A after the screening of “Mars One” which was part of TheWrap’s 2022-2023 Awards Season Screening Series. “And that gave me an interesting perspective that we want to know the universe, the expansion and travel to other planets, although we still have a lot of problems to do here on Earth. So that was intriguing to me.”
The film tells the story of the Martins, a lower-middle-class black family that lives on the fringes of a major Brazilian city. A far-right extremist president has just been sworn in, and the Martins feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia (Rejane Faria), her mother, believes that she is cursed after an unexpected encounter. Her husband places all his hopes on the soccer career of his son, Deivinho (Císero Lucas), who secretly aspires to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, her eldest daughter falls in love with a young woman and wonders if it’s time to leave home.
“I kept thinking about this dream that this kid has to be a part of this mission to discover the unknown,” Martins said. “I saw it as a very radical possibility for a kid like him. So I think he also represents something that’s intangible in a way, something that you can’t reach, or it’s not material in any way, but it’s kind of a dream, a utopia or something.”
Along with Deivinho’s dreams, Martins said the film is “about accidents and things that happen throughout our lives that shape us the way we are.”
“Mars One” premiered at Sundance and is coming to Netflix in January.
Watch the full interview with Martins here.