The Best Mother in the World

When Gal (Shirley Cruz), a recyclable waste collector, goes to the police to report abuse by her husband (Seu Jorge), they ignore her complaint. She leaves home, travelling through the streets of São Paulo with her children hidden in her rubbish cart. Homeless and vulnerable, she reimagines their escape as a “great adventure” to protect her children’s innocence and spare them the harshness of reality. Amid violence, precarity and hope, Gal faces the city and the system in search of a new future for her family. The Best Mother in the World, which had its world premiere at the Berlin Festival, reaffirms Anna Muylaert’s sensitive and incisive point of view regarding inequality, motherhood and female resistance.