At the age of 13, Bernardo received a camera as a gift from his father, and he takes it everywhere he goes. Even on a winter holiday to a country house with his father and his father’s girlfriend, Laís, he documents everything he sees and thinks. As the girlfriends come and go like the seasons, his father’s behaviour grows increasingly mysterious. Suspicions of his father’s unfaithfulness to Laís, whom Bernardo has grown fond of, spark the forging of a vengeful state of mind.

A Greek tragedy of the video era unfolds before our eyes — or perhaps within the mind of Brazilian director Zanotta, who revisits footage shot in his adolescence to reflect anew on his relationships with his father and stepmother. Playing with the form of ancient tragedy, premonitions and the concept of catharsis, he has created a metafiction about the past that can be reinterpreted and reassembled in the present. It is Anatomy of a Fall (2023) deconstructed by a cinephile — a thriller that immerses the viewer in the duality of the medium and rivals the most suspenseful of crime investigation series.