The first feature by São Paulo-based filmmaker, screenwriter and poet Maria Clara Escobar is a searching journey into life as a woman in 21st-century Brazil – as seen through the prism of a couple struggling to maintain the fiction of their fading relationship.

Laura (Carla Kinzo) and Israël (Otto Jr) share the same house and the same family but live together in name only – seemingly sticking together simply for the benefit of Lucas (David Lobo), their five-year-old son. But when Laura disappears, Israël is faced with the impossible decision of sharing the news with Lucas – and discovering what may have happened to the woman who, presumably, he once loved.

The screening will be followed by a conversation between director Maria Clara Escobar and film critic Ben Nicholson.

Desterro is screening as part of Collective Mobilisation, a survey of work from contemporary Portuguese cinema co-presented by the ICA, TERRATREME and Uma Pedra no Sapato.