Before Ismael has much chance to decide who he is, the village has already decided for him. His mother runs Casa Rosa, the local brothel in Veredas, and he is known simply as the “son of a bitch”- less a nickname than a sentence passed down on him. Carrying a copy of Moby-Dick, the only link to the father he has never known, he sets out across the Brazilian backlands with Bacalhau, his three-legged dog. He is searching for a parent, for the sea, and for a life beyond the identity others have imposed upon him.
At once grotesque, tender and darkly comic, O Filho da Puta inhabits a strange, unruly universe where the boundaries between the intimate and the absurd begin to dissolve. Through bold animation and a mischievous visual language, the film explores family, desire, identity and the strange inheritances that shape us.
There is something deliberately disobedient at the heart of the film: a refusal to behave, explain itself or settle into familiar categories. Its characters move through a world of excess and contradiction, where the ridiculous can turn unexpectedly poignant and the outrageous can reveal something deeply human.
Provocative without losing its sense of play, O Filho da Puta is an invitation to surrender to the unexpected. Strange, sensual and anarchic, it’s a film that lingers somewhere between dream, nightmare and feverish joke—and is best experienced with an open mind and a taste for the wonderfully weird.
O Filho da Puta/Son of a Bitch – Érica Maradona, Otto Guerra, Tania Anaya & Sávio Leite, BRAZIL
A gloriously filthy, anarchic animated romp, O Filho da Puta takes family dysfunction, bad behaviour and surreal mayhem and throws them into one beautifully unhinged blender.
2026 72’00 min
FILMMAKERS
Otto Guerra is a Brazilian filmmaker, animator, and screenwriter, who’s considered one of the pioneers of independent animation in Brazil. He is the founder of Otto Desenhos Animados, a production company based in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, with nearly 50 years of experience. His works are mainly aimed at adult audiences and often adapted from Brazilian comic books. Since 2020, he has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Erica Maradona is a Visual artist, Bachelor of Social Communication and partner at the production company Otto Desenhos Animados. Responsible for adapting the classic Brazilian comic strip Rocky & Hudson: The Gay Cowboys into a TV series, which won the 2021 Grande Prêmio do Cinema Brasileiro in the Best Animated Series category. She was assistant director of the feature film City of Pirates, winner of Best Film, among others, at the Havana International Film Festival in 2019.
Tania Anaya holds undergraduate and Master’s degrees in Fine Arts and a degree in animation from the Núcleo de Cinema de Animação, a Brazil/Canada Cooperation Program. Working with drawing and audiovisual production, she has directed several short films, commercials and documentaries. Tania recently released her first feature film, Nimuendajú, an animated feature film, that made its debut in the Official Selection of the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2025.
Sávio Leite studied Communication and holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts. He is a short-film director and animation professor. His films have been screened and awarded at festivals worldwide. Four-time nominee for the Grande Prêmio do Cinema Brasileiro, he won Best Animated Short in 2018. He is co-founder of the Timeline Video Art Festival and the Múmia Animation Festival, and editor and translator of books on Brazilian animation.
Our Funding Partners
With Special Thanks to The Elf Factory, official sponsor of LIAF 2026.
With Special Thanks to the Arts Council England
Event supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London. Proud to be a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
Venue
The Horse Hospital is a three tiered progressive arts venue in London providing an encompassing umbrella for the related media of film fashion, music and art. For more information about The Horse Hospital and how to get there, find out more.
Horse Hospital
