Brazil’s Exercise of Chaos (O Exercicio Do Caos), helmed by Frederico Machado, will premiere in the Director’s First program at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, which runs from September 26 through October 10. 

Described by filmmaker Machado as a a film with “little dialogue, which favors the exposure of the revealing fullness of silence,” the existentialist thriller follows the lives of an authoritarian single father and his three teenage daughters. The family lives and works in an isolated flour farm in the Brazilian state of Maranhão; they deal with exploitation at the hands of the farm’s foreman, who also lusts after the teen daughters. 

Here is the film’s full synopsis:

Exercise of Chaos narrates in tones of an existentialist thriller the story of a grim and authoritarian father living with three teenage daughters in an old flour farm in the state of Maranhão, away from the villages nearby.

The family shares the absence of the mother – allegedly disappeared – and deals with the strict orders of a strange taskmaster, that explores them while lurking the innocence of the girls, divided between the illusion of childhood and the cruel reality of their lives. While the family unity crumbles bit by bit, the fragile characters stand on the threshold between reason and madness, between chaos and faith.

Intriguing premise; we’ll certainly keep an eye on this film. The trailer was listed as private; we will post it as soon as it becomes available.

The festival released its slate earlier this month, and we posted its lineup HERE.

Take a look at the film’s stills below: