ROLE

EDITOR

GENRE

FEATURE FILM

YEAR

2023

FESTIVALS

Toronto,
Rotterdam

Undertow is a 94-minute feature that follows two estranged brothers reunited by a family emergency in a coastal fishing town. Directed by Ana Ferreira, the film was assembled from over 300 hours of footage shot across four seasons, requiring an editorial approach that could hold both the sprawl of real time and the compression of dramatic necessity.

The editing builds rhythm from silence as much as from action — long takes interrupted by sudden cuts, conversations that begin in one location and resolve in another. The goal was to let the landscape into the film’s emotional structure: the sea’s indifference as an ironic counterpoint to the brothers’ intensity, not merely backdrop.

Themes

• Fraternal loyalty and its limits
• Inheritance — of place, of trauma, of silence
• The impossibility of return

Reception

World premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2023, followed by the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Undertow received particular critical attention for its editing, with The Hollywood Reporter calling it “a masterclass in restraint — knowing exactly when to stay and when to cut away.”