The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
- Michel Joelsas: Mauro
- Germano Haiut: Shlomo
- Paulo Autran: Motel
- Daniela Piepszyk: Hanna
- Simone Spoladore: Miriam
- Caio Blat: Italo
- Liliana Castro: Irene
The year when my parents were on vacation is a Brazilian film from the year 2006. He was competition entry at the Berlinale 2007.
Action
The film takes place in 1970 in Brazil, the military dictatorship under General Emilio Garrastazu Médici. Mauro is an avid soccer boy who can not wait for the start of the Football World Cup 1970. The time until then sells it sells with table football and fantasies about the Brazilian national football team that can win the World Cup at this World Cup for the third time. Shortly before the World Cup Mauro has to travel with his parents in their VW Beetle headlong from his hometown of Belo Horizonte to São Paulo. Supposedly they go on vacation, and Mauro should stay with his grandfather so long. Just in time for the World Cup they will be back.
Before the house of the grandfather they leave him alone and go away. With a suitcase and a football Mauro waiting at the front door of the grandfather, who does not seem to be home. After a long wait, suddenly appeared on the old neighbor Shlomo, and Mauro needs to learn that his grandfather has just died. From now on, Shlomo and the Jewish community take care of the boy. Mauro, whose father is a Jew, but grew up irreligious, ends up in a society that not only speaks a foreign language to him, but whose traditions and practices are completely new to him. The old Shlomo has little understanding of the not knowing Mauro. Slowly, the two grow closer.
Mauro is still fast friends here. The brunette Hanna, who lives with her mother in the same house, is fast becoming the best friend. Waiting for the parents joins the waiting for the big football event. However, for the first game of Brazilian parents are not as promised back. The joy of victory of his team is therefore only half as large.
About the random acquaintance to the students Italo, who is involved in the student opposition and Mauro's father knows, Shlomo learns more about the whereabouts of the parents Mauro, but is watched by state security during a meeting with the students. After a campaign of arrests of police at the University also Shlomo will be picked up for questioning. During the final at the World Cup Shlomo returns home, and Mauro's mother is back. Brazil is world champion, and the mother takes care of the son into exile. But the father is gone.
Reviews
- Der Tagesspiegel, February 10, 2007: Brazil is the world champion, in the final against Italy in 1970 in Mexico, cheers the whole country celebrates. Only a small, soccer avid boy wanders alone through the streets of São Paulo. The hour of greatest triumph is the Loneliest his life for him. In this nightmarish parallel guide culminates Cao Hamburger competition entry " O ano em que meus pais sairam de ferias ". A concentrated, intense movie with its own unique, beautiful rhythm.
- Berliner Morgenpost, February 10, 2007: The director Cao Hamburger has worked a lot with children. You can see it. In Mauro's simple appearance reflects many suppressed emotions. Everything we believe otherwise know of Brazil, beaches, Bossa Nova, lots of sun, rum and easy life, there must be in a different country. Not here. The colors are muted and dirty. Sao Paulo appears dull, poor, vulnerable. In the end, only one parent returns from vacation. A summer fairy tale dictatorship, bitter and tender and impressive.
Awards
The film had its world premiere on 26 September 2006 at the Festival do Rio in Rio de Janeiro and received at the festival the audience award.
2007 was the year when my parents were on vacation selected as the official Brazilian contribution for the nomination for the best foreign language film at the Oscars in 2008, though previously José Padilhas office hit Elite Squad was nominated. A jury of film critics, filmmakers and journalists, had subsequently taken the crime drama, which reports on controversial issues such as drug-related crime and policing in Brazil's capital Rio de Janeiro out of the race, since one Hamburgers film awards better chance of success. This would lie among other things, that most members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the judges on foreign films, were over 60 years old and "not very like violence would ," said one juror. The film would have also to be very oriented to the pattern of the average U.S. television series.