HKAIIFF 2026 · Official film record
Blue Roof, Red Earth
Telhado azul, terra vermelha
[ Film / Synopsis ]
A young filmmaker rebuilds her grandmother’s vanished house from roof tiles, soil rubbings, voice notes, and uncertain childhood drawings.
After learning that her grandmother’s rural house has been demolished, Iara returns with a backpack camera and a box of childhood drawings. Nothing remains except red soil, two blue roof tiles, and neighbours who disagree about where each room stood. She records their gestures, makes graphite rubbings from the ground, photographs clay models, and asks her grandmother to describe the house without correcting contradictions. Generated transitions move only between these handmade sources, suggesting walls that never become fully stable. A kitchen may open into the yard; a window changes height when another memory interrupts. The short film embraces those inconsistencies as evidence of affection rather than architectural failure. Working with a tiny team, Iara creates an animated documentary in which voice, paper, dust, and practical light carry more authority than seamless reconstruction.
“For a resourceful first film whose handmade textures and restrained generative transitions turn incomplete family memory into confident cinematic form.”International Jury citation
- Director
- Iara Montez
- Production entity
- Iara Montez
- Entity type
- Independent filmmaker
- Country / region
- Brazil
- Runtime
- 28 min
- Language
- Portuguese
- Format
- 4K mixed media · 1.66:1 · stereo mix
- Genre
- Mixed-media animated documentary
- Completed
- 9 March 2026
- Production window
- 7 months
- Festival master / version
- Festival master v1.1 · checksum locked
[ Named authorship / Principal credits ]
Creative team
[ Production entity / Profile ]
Iara Montez
Iara Montez is an independent Brazilian filmmaker working with family archives, hand-built objects, and mixed-media animation. Her compact process is designed around materials she can photograph, handle, and revise herself.
[ 51% Standard / Assessed creative participation ]
58%
AI participation is assessed across the full chain of authorship, supported by journals, model logs, version histories, stems and finishing records.
[ Capability record / 2026 signal ]
Where this film points
- Hybrid capture + generation
- Controllable cinematography
The film demonstrates accessible hybrid tools that let an emerging filmmaker extend handmade materials without losing their texture. It anticipates distinctive small films competing through authored surfaces rather than production scale.
The director and her family alone decided which contradictions expressed memory honestly and which images felt too complete to keep.
[ Kitchen Drawn in Soil ]
A graphite floor plan appears over red earth as neighbours point toward conflicting doorways. Blue tile fragments catch the late-afternoon light.
[ Production method / Documented workflow ]
How the film was made
The record distinguishes authored decisions, bounded machine operations and final human approvals across the production chain.
Iara organised memories by speaker, object, and disagreement, using simple comparison tools without allowing them to resolve contradictions.
Family and neighbours spoke naturally and demonstrated remembered spaces with their hands; no contributor voice was replaced.
Soil rubbings, drawings, clay rooms, tile photography, and constrained transitions create an intentionally unstable house.
The director shaped rhythm from pauses and conflicting gestures, retaining rough edges where cleaner continuity would imply false certainty.
Family voices, insects, footsteps, and recorded household objects form the score, supported by minimal restoration and spatial placement.
The team archived permissions, drawings, object photographs, voice notes, generation settings, rejected reconstructions, and the final cut.
“For a resourceful first film whose handmade textures and restrained generative transitions turn incomplete family memory into confident cinematic form.”
[ Records / Rights / Provenance ]
Reviewer-ready evidence
The record links each animated passage to its drawing, object, speaker memory, editorial choice, and retained contradiction.
Family voice, image, drawing, object, and location permissions define release scope, duration, attribution, and withdrawal procedures.
Transition lineage, licensed source additions, image seeds, material references, constraints, and exclusions are preserved.
The delivery includes the picture master, stereo mix, subtitles, access files, source-material index, and checksum record.