Sweden
Writer/Director: Nathalie Alvarez Mesen
Producer: Nima Yousefi
Genre: Drama
In the late 1700’s, Isabel, a conservative European governess travels to Colonial Latin America to educate two girls into becoming proper God-fearing women. Slowly, she discovers that a wilderness runs within the women in the house, masters as well as servants. Awakening from her sheltered existence, Isabel welcomes this new force – an animal that would rather tear everything down than be contained.
In the late 1700’s, Isabel, a European governess of mixed descent, arrives in Colonial Latin America to an hacienda in the middle of the jungle. Here, her main task is to educate two girls into becoming proper God-fearing women.
Isabel struggles to find a place in the household – she looks like the other women working in the house under slaving conditions, but doesn’t speak their language and, being from Europe, holds a more privileged position within the house – while still being “beneath” the family.
As the patriarchal and racist structures become more evident, an invisible wilderness – a resistance – starts to grow within the women in the house, regardless of class or race.
As the jungle silently starts to take over the hacienda, Isabel’s Christian beliefs of what a woman should be are torn down – giving way to the prohibited wilderness growing inside her as well. As she for the first time finds belonging in her surrounding sisterhood, liberation from the patriarchal oppression comes in the form of nature and its creatures. One by one, the women welcome an unapologetic force not only into the house, but also into their bodies – an animal that would rather tear everything down than be contained.