DVD, Digital Release: Memory House

Digital/DVD Release Date: Dec. 14, 2021
Price: DVD $24.95
Studio: Film Movement


João Paulo Miranda Maria explores the racial tensions of modern-day Brazil in his debut feature Memory House.

Living in modern times but trapped in a colonial nightmare, Cristovam (Antônio Pitanga) is an Indigenous black man from the rural north of Brazil who migrated for work during the economic boom to an affluent Austrian enclave in the south. Over three decades later, he is now lost in a decadent community. Informed that he must take a wage cut at the milk factory where he has worked for many years and confronted by virulent racism on a daily basis, he becomes more and more estranged from the white world and finds refuge in an abandoned home where he discovers artifacts reminiscent of his past, prompting a rediscovery of his roots.

The winner of the Roger Ebert “New Directors” Award at the Chicago International Film Festival, the DVD incarnation of the film contains the following features: 

  • Commentary by director João Paulo Miranda Maria
  • Bonus Short Film — The Girl Who Danced with the Devil (Directed by João Paulo Miranda Maria | Brazil | Portuguese with English subtitles | 15 minutes) — A girl living in a conservative religious society finds paradise in an unlikely place – at the local disco. Winner of a Special Jury Mention at Cannes 2016.

Buy or Rent Memory House
on DVD

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.