Credits: Epicentre Films.
Baby, a Brazilian art-house film, opens with a silent crash. Wellington, 18, leaves a juvenile detention center. He returns to a street empty of promises. His parents have disappeared, and the vast city becomes a theater of wandering. Very quickly, he catches the eye of Ronaldo, thirty-six, an ambiguous figure with a tender heart. Thus begins a love story of bodies and struggle, grounded in social reality.
The director Marcelo Caetano, a rising figure in Brazilian art-house cinema, stages this encounter like a ballet of contradictions. He favors gestures, more eloquent than words, to evoke fear, desire, and abandonment. His camera follows Wellington through the streets of São Paulo, a sprawling and sometimes indifferent city. Through this urban poem, Baby recalls the complexity of life on the margins.
Marcelo Caetano: Free, Committed Cinema
Marcelo Caetano, born in Belo Horizonte in 1982, has established himself among the rising voices of alternative cinema in Brazil. After Corpo Elétrico in 2017, Baby extends a realist and political vein while leaning into sensuality. He shoots on the streets, without closed sets, favoring an approach halfway between fiction and documentary.
This film responds to the Bolsonaro years, marked by massive cuts to funding for so-called LGBTQI+ cinema. It took seven years to bring Baby to the screen, with determination. Caetano criticizes the grip of traditional family models. He champions chosen families, built on love and solidarity, a recurring theme in contemporary Brazilian cinema.
Filming São Paulo means shining a light on those the state neglects: the homeless, sex workers, voguing communities. Every shot embraces the city and its frenzy. "The colors go into an orgy," Caetano says. Red, in digital form, becomes vivid, a symbol of urgent passion and latent violence.
João Pedro Mariano: Baby’s Innocence
The role of Wellington, nicknamed "Baby," is played by João Pedro Mariano, 21. For his first major role, he immersed himself in downtown São Paulo. He explored saunas and porn theaters in order to grasp the clandestine reality that fuels the film. He embodies a young man suddenly confronted with adulthood, carrying the hope of a rebirth.
His naivety is both disarming and captivating. Despite abandonment, prostitution, and violence, Baby is still looking for a home. He wants to believe that a sincere love can bloom amid the chaos of his life. When he plays video games with Ronaldo’s son, he is no longer an escort or a delinquent, but a child dreaming of being simply accepted.
Ricardo Teodoro: An Ambiguous Mentor
Across from him, Ricardo Teodoro plays Ronaldo, older and harder. A former dancer and first-time actor, he gives the character an apparent muscular strength. Beneath that mask, a deep vulnerability emerges. Ronaldo invents an exaggerated masculinity as a shield against the assaults of everyday life.
The bond between Baby and Ronaldo goes beyond romance. It examines power, dependency, and transaction. Who saves whom? Who is manipulating the other? The story offers no definitive answer. Instead, it invites us to contemplate the complexity of this relationship, a mirror of the contradictions of Brazilian society.
A Distinctive Tone and a Place in Art-House Cinema
By the late 1950s, prolific Brazil had seen Cinema Novo, akin to the French New Wave. Led by Glauber Rocha, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, and Carlos Diegues, it blended political commitment, social realism, and formal freedom. Its credo: a cinema poor in means, but rich in ideas.
Baby itself belongs to the lineage of a more daring Brazilian cinema that has emerged since the 1980s, when filmmakers like Geraldo de Barros and Ana Carolina Soares were already running up against censorship. Today, this movement is gaining international recognition. Directors often explore themes of marginality, identity, and desire, as Caetano does so well here.
The filmmaker is also inspired by social realism. Like Walter Salles or Hector Babenco, he examines the fractures of a Brazil marked by glaring inequality. His perspective clearly paints a fresh portrait of youth searching for direction. Baby gives a face and a voice to those who remain invisible in mainstream media.
Critical Reception and International Impact
Screened at the Critics’ Week of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Baby won over observers. Critics praised its intensity and precision, highlighting the visual poetry that envelops this chronicle of wandering. Audiences responded to the humanity of the actors. The film also shines a light, without voyeurism, on the reality of Brazil’s marginalized communities.
Beyond its borders, distributors in Europe and Latin America are showing interest in this committed film. On social media, the excitement is palpable. Clips are circulating, sparking debate and awareness. Universities are reportedly considering symposiums to study the work of Marcelo Caetano, one of the faces of the renewal of Brazilian cinema.
A Social Drama and an Ode to Dignity
Baby blends social drama, romantic melodrama, and an urban and social chronicle. The deliberately slow pace underscores the tension that inhabits every scene. Caetano cites the influence of Wong Kar-wai, Almodóvar, and Claire Denis, filmmakers known for their sensory approach to emotion. In turn, the director turns the Brazilian night into a space for exploration, where underground parties and hardship intersect.
Under the grayness of urban lighting, Baby and Ronaldo grapple with their doubts, their impulses, and their search for identity. The silences, heavy with meaning, say more than long speeches ever could. Baby invites us to see dignity everywhere, even where it seems broken by precarity.
Released on March 19, 2025, Baby runs 1 hour 47 minutes. It is being shown in various countries, including Brazil, France, and the Netherlands, reaching a diverse audience. In a film landscape often dominated by blockbusters, this art-house film reaffirms the power of free cinema. Through its look at marginality and love, it offers a message of hope. The creative vitality of the Brazilian scene remains in full swing.