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THE DEVIL QUEEN
1974
Director
Antonio Carlos da Fontoura
Starring
Milton Gonçalves
Stepan Nercessian
Nelson Xavier
Runtime
100 minutes
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In the underworld of 1970s Rio de Janeiro, the feared “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.
"If Scorcese and Almodóvar got drunk and went to bed together in Rio in the 70’s, this movie would be the stain left on their bedsheets." - Christian Jacob Ramón
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.
"If Scorcese and Almodóvar got drunk and went to bed together in Rio in the 70’s, this movie would be the stain left on their bedsheets." - Christian Jacob Ramón