MirrorWater Entertainment has begun production on The Lost Voice, the much-anticipated documentary about the first woman believed to have ever filmed in the Amazon.
The story follows award-winning filmmaker Christina Rose, who obsessively searches to find out who her great-grand aunt Pola Brückner (pseudonym Pola Bauer-Adamara) was and why her career abruptly ended after the film expedition into the Amazon forest in 1929. The news complements Brazil being named Country of Honor at this years’ Marché du Film.
Determined to give her great-grand aunt a standing in Germany’s cinema history as an accomplished filmmaker and find proof that Pola was indeed the first woman to ever film in the Amazon, Christina herself is confronted with her own demons that have haunted her as a filmmaker.
Production began on April 29th in Rio da Janeiro from where the crew will continue on to film in Belém and Marajó Island to trace the exact footsteps of the film expedition that took place over 90 years ago. The shoot will end in São Paulo. Take a look below:
Inspired by the book of Pola Brückner, Eine Frau ging in den Urwald (A Woman Went into the Jungle), Christina starts on a journey to discover who her great-grand aunt Pola was. She searches in several archives and traces her steps in the film industry in Berlin, but with every new document she finds in the archives, more questions arise.
As she searches for answers, she realizes that to learn about what really happened during the expedition, she too must take the journey that Pola and filmmaker August Brückner, her then husband, took almost 100 years ago. Rose decides to travel to Brazil, where she traces their fateful journey on the Amazon River – not just to find out about what really happened but to verify if what she recounts in her book is truth or fiction.
“We’ve been researching Pola and everything surrounding the film expedition for well over a year and I’m very grateful to have the production company Grifa Filmes on my side who not only helped during the research phase but have been a vital partner in making the film shoot in Brazil possible. I am very much looking forward to the challenge ahead – I know it will be an emotional one – but one I feel like I’ve been preparing for my whole life,” notes Christina Rose.
She adds, “Yes, this is a very personal story, but I strongly believe that the key theme this story will touch upon is universal and will resonate with an international audience.”
After production ends in Brazil, the team is set to finish production in Germany later this year. The film is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025.
Rose’s award-winning series, Empowered – Women Shaping the Future, featuring women in non-traditional roles, was shortlisted for the Screen International Global Production Awards, held in Cannes on May 19th.
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