Kino Lorber will release Private Desert (Deserto Particular), the latest feature from Brazilian director Aly Muritiba (Rust, To My Beloved). Described as “a triumphant affirmation of queer love”, the drama opens Friday, August 26 at the Quad Cinema in New York City and on Friday, September 9 at the Laemmle Theaters in Los Angeles, followed by other select cities nationwide.
Brazil’s official submission to the International Feature category at the 94th Academy Awards®, winner of the BNL People’s Choice Award at the Venice International Film Festival, and an official selection at numerous other international festivals including BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+, San Francisco, Seattle, Cine Las Americas, Hollywood Brazilian, and OUTShine, Private Desert stars Antonio Saboia (Bacurau), Thomas Aquino, Laila Garin, Zezita De Matos, Sandro Guerra, Luthero De Almeida, Otávio Linhares, Cynthia Senek and newcomer Pedro Fasanaro, who identifies as non-binary.
Private Desert centers on Sara and Daniel who, although in a long-distance relationship, comfort one another from within their own, very different life circumstances. Sara is a genderfluid blue-collar worker who lives as her male birth identity Robson by day and her femme identity, Sara, by night, while caring for her religious grandmother in Sobradinho, a small town in the rural northeast of the country. Daniel, who teaches in a police academy in the southern metropolis of Curitiba, has been placed on unpaid leave after a violent incident occurs that’s all over the news.
The only thing holding him together is his online romance with Sara, whom he has never met in person. When she suddenly disappears, Daniel drives 2,000 miles across Brazil to find her. He posts Sara’s picture all over town but no one recognizes her, until he receives a mysterious call from someone claiming to know her and asking to meet. What follows is a journey of the heart that will change Sara and Daniel forever.
Director Aly Muritiba (b. 1979, Bahia, Brazil) is a Brazilian filmmaker and winner of the Global Filmmaking Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival with the screenplay for the feature film The Man Who Killed My Loved One. With participation at Sundance (Rust, 2018), Venice (Tarantula, 2015), San Sebastian (To My Beloved, 2015, and Rust, 2018), and Cannes Critics’ Week (Quadrangle, 2013), the films written and directed by Muritiba have won more than 200 awards in festivals around the world. His short film A Factory (2011) made the shortlist for the 85th Academy Awards® in the category for best live-action short. In addition, Muritiba has directed for television and major streaming platforms, including his work on O Hipnotizador (HBO), Carcereiros (Globo), Irmãos Freitas (Turner), Irmandade (Netflix) and O Caso Evandro (GloboPlay).