Berlin 2026 Film Clip for ‘The Fabulous Time Machine’ by Eliza Capai
“Before everything, it was dark. Then God started playing and making all things up, and he made the man from the dust, and the woman from the man.” The Berlin Film Festival‘s Generation Kplus program this year opens with The Fabulous Time Machine (A Fabulosa Máquina do Tempo), and Eliza Capai’s new feature documentary opens with those words. Set in the arid Brazilian hinterland, it shows girls playing “between their moms’ miserable past and fantastic dreams of the future,” according to a synopsis of the film. “Despite living in houses with dirt floors, without tap water, amid the aridity of the Brazilian sertão, they state that they were born with perks – able to eat, study, play, and dream of better futures.” And its 10-year-old narrator wonders in the opening moments if women would be different if they were made from dust, too. Why is the movie called The Fabulous Time Machine? Well, the girls invent time machines to travel to the past and question their realities, playfully dealing with such complex issues as gender differences, alcoholism, and religion. And they …
