Maelstrom

In the midst of the second decade of the 21st century, Humanity still doesnt’t have an answer or solution to stop violence against women, a problem inherently linked to gender roles and interpersonal relationships. Portugal, a member of a civilly mature Europe with enormous progress in the area of human rights, struggles for solutions to deal with femicide, in spite of the growing awareness of social institutions and the increased number of reports from victims. This is a social practice that has become, insidiously throughout history, ordinary and expected. Maelstrom is an artistic exploration of this issue, of gender problems and expectations about social roles that weigh on the male psyche.
Following Chico, in his 30s, middle-class and sloppy looking, the film will show the desire that Clara, his neighbor, evokes in him, as well as the consequences of it. Adhering to the social conventions, normative and patriarchal expectations that imbue personal interaction, Chico goes through his days with only one goal in mind: to conquer Clara. To conquer her physically, mentally, metaphorically, to reduce her to a commodity that can be possessed, always armed with his own conceptions of relationship, intimacy, and even reality.
It will be in this spiral of expectations, desire, pacts, and violence (both psychological and physical) that Chico will get to the core of his issues: male sexual lack of control and the predatory impulse associated with it. This, however, will not be a film of clichés and easy commonplaces: if they exist, they will be subverted; if subverted, they will be metaphorical.