“Medusa” follows two lifelong friends, Mari (Mariana Oliveira) and Michele ( Lara Tremouroux), whose church vocal group, Michele and the Treasures of the Lord, sing political propaganda and love songs to the Lord in the style of '60s-style girl groups while awash in purple-pink neon.
As pointed in its criticism of the Christian Right as Beth de Araujo’s 2022 SXSW breakout “Soft & Quiet,” what separates da Silveira’s film is its interest in the structures that birth these kinds of women, not just the brutality of their actions. Inspired by the rise of radical evangelical Christian factions and women-on-women violence in her native Brazil, director da Silveira crafts a film that oscillates between satire and out-and-out horror as she analyzes the world of these so-called pious, yet actually brutal women.
