The Devil Queen
- Mon, Aug 24
- Tue, Aug 25
- Wed, Aug 26
- Thu, Aug 27
- Fri, Aug 28
The Frida Cinema's seating is first-come, first-serve. For our Midnight Screenings, please plan on arriving by 11:30pm to ensure ample time for parking, picking up concessions, and securing optimal seats. Screening will begin promptly at midnight.
Director: Antonio Carlos da Fontoura Run Time: 100 min. Release Year: 1974 Language: Portuguese
Starring: Milton Gonçalves, Nelson Xavier, Odete Lara, Stepan Nercessian, Wilson Grey
In the underworld of 1970s Rio de Janeiro, the feared The Devil Queen rules a drug cartel from the back room of a brothel. Draped in green eyeshadow and menace, she commands loyalty with a jackknife that serves equally for shaving legs and slitting throats. Her grip on power begins to falter as rival factions–favela gangsters, drag queens, and sex workers, turn on one another in a violent struggle to claim her throne, exposing a world where those excluded from bourgeois society fight for dominance on the margins.
Directed by Antônio Carlos de Fontoura during Brazil’s military dictatorship, this lurid tale is loosely inspired by the legendary 1930s gangster João Francisco dos Santos. The film reimagines the figure in a 1970s setting as an early, provocative representation of queerness. As The Devil Queen, Milton Gonçalves delivers a striking performance that destabilizes rigid notions of masculinity, dissolving the binary of macho and queen into something volatile and unforgettable.