Stories

LAURA | ESMERALDA | TELMA | ANA | MARTILEIDE

 

LAURA
|São Paulo|

FICTION


Scene 1: São Paulo – ext/day/dawn

Aerial view of the Avenida Paulista, São Paulo’s main thoroughfare. We pan in onto an upper middle-class neighbourhood. It is early morning and usual everyday traffic is beginning to stir. Executives talk on mobiles phones while hailing taxis; passers-by stop to read the headlines at newspaper-stands, while workers stand at cafe counters to drink their morning coffee.


Scene 2: Laura’s room – int/day/dawn

A close-up of Laura’s hands as she adjusts her stockings. She is sitting on a stool in front of her dressing-table. She puts on chic but comfortable shoes, suitable for someone who has a lot of walking to do. She puts her legs together to check that everything is in order. We pull back to reveal: Laura, sitting on her dressing-table stool. She turns to the mirror which reflects the face of a good-looking, elegant woman in her forties. She picks up and puts on a lipstick. She puts her make-up in her bag. She is suddenly overcome by a slight feeling of depression, but at once gives a deep breath and rises, ready to face the day. She glances impatiently at her watch.


Scene 3: Laura’s apartment/corridor – int/day

Laura opens a bedroom door and sees Antonio, a boy of about 6, asleep in bed. She gives him a tender look and closes the door again.

Laura never chose São Paulo to live in. She is actually from Rio de Janeiro and moved to the city when her father was transferred by the international company in which he worked. She is from an upper middle-class family and has always had a comfortable life, which allowed her, without any feeling of guilty, to do Arts at university, which is usually considered unlikely to bring in much money in terms of work. After her graduation, Laura began to do translation for large companies and publishers, while she always nursed a dream that she would one day write her own book.
Our story begins after she has become divorced and she has to take care of her son and, at the same time, at 45, confront head-on a highly competitive market and struggle for a steady job that can guarantee the payment of bills.
Concerns with survival have never been part of Laura’s universe. Bernardo, her ex-husband, a successful publicity agent, allowed her to continue to live a comfortable life, dedicated to her son, a little translation work and the fulfilment of her greatest dream, which is to finish writing her first novel. But when her marriage is over, after she confessed to her husband that she had had an brief encounter with a friend at a university reunion, everything changes in her life. Laura loves her husband, but all attempts at reconciliation have proved fruitless.

 


Bernardo cannot forgive her betrayal and the only thing that he would allow at the separation is that she continues to live in the apartment with their son. She cannot even count on her family. Her father had lost all their assets in ill-fated investments and his only income is his pension.

She seeks help from family friends and from her own, but the only thing she gets is an indecent proposal from a friend of her father’s and a sermon from an ex-university friend who is now the editor of a woman’s magazine:


Disappointment leads to deep depression, but, boosted by her friend Greg and with a good deal of self-assurance she decides to bet everything on finishing her book. Maybe, when the book is finished, she might be able to change the direction of her life.

 

DOCUMENTARY

In line with the fiction /documentary concept of the whole film, “Laura”, as the fictional part unfolds, the narrative will be interspersed with statements from women from large cities, of different social classes, all talking about how they faced separation and the competitive job market after reaching forty.