Secret Guest (2008)

The short is an adaptation of the short story that gives title to the book "Hóspede Secreto" (Secret Guest), winner of the renowned Prêmio Cruz e Souza de 2002 (Cruz e Souza Award 2002), chosen among more than 1,400 competitors, by a jury of which made part writers like Moacyr Scliar and Carlos Heitor Cony. Considered by the critic Wilson Martins (Jornal do Brasil) as "one of the greatest writers of our time", its author, Miguel Sanches Neto, elects as central theme of most of his literature, the inner conflict of characters stripped of their inland part of the country roots and misfit to the modern life of the great metropolises. The main character of this narrative is victim of a perverse process that weakens and dilutes her personal identity, confronting her with a global world, full of habits and manners with no meaning to her, in face of which she feels impotent and antagonized. This conflict is dramatized here in a Curitiba devoid of its features by a misleading marketing that tries to sell to its inhabitants the idea that they live in a first world city. On the other hand the rural landscape is presented disfigured by the inevitable implantation of the monoculture and by economic imperatives that mercilessly degrade the environment and the culture of the place where they predominate.