"I have already lived my death and now all that is left is to make a film about it." So said the filmmaker Hector Babenco to Bárbara Paz when he realized he did not have much time left. She accepted the challenge to fulfill the last wish of her late partner: to be the main protagonist in his own death.
In this tender immersion into the life of one of the greatest filmmakers from South America, Babenco himself consciously bares his soul in intimate and painful situations. He expresses fears and anxieties, and also memories, reflections, and fantasies, in this face-off between his intellectual vigor and physical frailty, which were the hallmarks of his career.
From the onset of cancer at the age of 38 until his death at 70, Babenco made of the cinema his medicine and the nourishment that kept him alive. "Babenco – Tell me when I Die” is Barbara Paz's first feature film, but is also in a way Hector's last work: a film about filming so never to die.
Hector Babenco, Willem Dafoe, Bárbara Paz
- Directed by: Bárbara Paz
- Writing: Maria Camargo, Bárbara Paz
- Production Company: HB Filmes
- Co-Production Companies: Gullane, Ava Filmes, Lusco Fusco, Globo Filmes, GloboNews, Canal Brasil
- Producer: Bárbara Paz
- Co-Producers: Caio Gullane Fabiano Gullane
- Associate Producers: Willem Dafoe, Petra Costa
- HB FIlmes Producer: Myra Babenco
- Cinematographer: Stefan Ciupek, Carolina Costa, Bárbara Paz
- Production Designer: Lara Tauzs
- Editor: Cao Guimarães, Bárbara Paz
- Editing Consultor: Yael Bitton, Karen Harley
- Supervising Sound Editor: Miriam Biderman, ABC, Rodrigo Ferrante
- Original Soundtrack: O Grivo
- Venice International Film Festival 2019 - Competition: Venice Classics - WINNER of the Best Documentary on Cinema
- São Paulo International Film Festival 2019
- Mar Del Plata International Film Festival 2019
- Cairo International Film Festival 2019
- Havana Film Festival 2019
- Rio International Film Festival 2019
- 23rd Festival du Cinéma Brésilien de Paris (2021)
- Variety: Taskovski Acquires Venice Classics' Babenco – Tell Me When I Die (EXCLUSIVE)
