DIRECTED BY: Jean-Baptiste ERRECA

A Brazilian adventure full of striking contrasts. Two worlds so different, it’s hard to imagine they are part of the same country…

San Paulo. Every year, the 27 Brazilian states send a candidate to the megalopolis to take part in the Miss Bum Bum contest… A typically Brazilian beauty pageant that honors Brazil’s most beautiful bottom. Françoise Spiekermeier will follow Andressa, one of the favorite candidates. Pageant rules are very strict; anything can be surgically altered, except the posterior which must be 100% natural. This doesn’t stop Andressa from using a few secret techniques… On the menu: weight-lifting, airbrush suntan… and a few little injections.

Xingu Park – thousands of kilometers from the megalopolis, in the middle of the Amazon forest - is inhabited by the Waura tribe. Like all teenage girls ready to become women, Awapiru must live hidden and with no visual contact with the others for an entire year. Françoise joins her several days before she comes out of seclusion for her ‘baptism’. In accordance with ancestral customs, Awapiru accomplished the lengthy preparations, notably the incredible and painful binding of her calves. But on the big day, adorned in an orange makeup derived from urukum, she will at last enter the world of women on the occasion of festivities organized in her honor.

In Tubatuba, much deeper in the Amazon jungle, Françoise will follow the men of the Yudja tribe in search of the ingredients necessary for their makeup and thus reveal their beauty secrets. Jenipapo leaves are gathered, an ink is extracted from its berries and chicken feather down glued with natural resins: an unchanging ritual to enliven their dances, these daily ceremonies are designed to preserve their culture and unite generations.