Brazil’s Bernard Lessa Talks Agency, Kindness and a Character Unable to Escape Politics in ‘The Cuban Doctor’

variety.com:

Callum McLennan There is a moment in Bernard Lessa’s “The Cuban Doctor” where Akin, the doctor, convinces a wary indigenous mother that surgery is needed to restore sight in her daughter’s left eye.

He shows kindness, respect and patience, waiting days before she returns to give the go ahead. His approach is in stark contrast to a political climate swelling around him in Bolsonaro’s Brazil in 2018. “The research we conducted while developing the script revealed that the Cuban way of practicing medicine is much more human and less bureaucratic than what we were used to in Brazil,” Lessa told Variety, adding: “Bolsonaro became the spokesperson for the angry Brazilian medical class, which, despite not being willing to work in the places where the Cubans came to work, felt entitled to claim that market share….For us, opposing Bolsonaro’s arrival to Akin’s interrupted mission is a way of demonstrating what was truly at stake in that moment.” Outside of Akin’s medical vocation is his growing bond to Ana, a local teacher, and her friend Sergio.

Lead actor Reynier Morales gives a humane and passionate depth to Akin and is matched by the chemistry Ana Flávia Cavalcanti and Guga Patriota bring to the triangle. “Reynier is a very talented Cuban actor who left the island for the first time to film with us while Ana is a great Brazilian actress with a growing career, who fortunately fell in love with the script and joined us,” said Lessa. “And Guga, like Sérgio, is a very enlightened human being who charmed everyone on the team since the first audition,” he added.

The director used Forro, a close and sensual style of Brazilian dance synonymous with its North-Eastern region “to develop bodily intimacy between them.” Don’t mistake.