Brazillian Indie ‘The Year My Parents Went on Vacation’ a Tender Window to the World

CHICAGO – Film is often at its best when it offers a “window to the world” about other cultures dealing with issues that life in the U.S. never imagines. “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation” is a meticulous, fascinating and tender story of Brazil in 1970 when revolution was in the air and the World Cup was the hope of bringing a country back together.

Michel Joelsas is Mauro – the 13-year-old son of Daniel and Bia Stein – who are communist revolutionaries plotting against the military government of Brazil. On the run and forced from their home, they tell their son he’s going to stay with his grandfather in São Paulo because they are “going on vacation”.

What they don’t know as they drop the boy at his grandfather’s apartment is that the old man has just died. They drive away and leave Mauro to fend for himself. As a secular boy left in a primarily Jewish neighborhood, Mauro is reluctantly adopted by his grandfather’s elderly neighbor (Schlomo).

“The Year My Parents Went on Vacation”. Photo credit: IMDb

The movie poster for “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation”. Image credit: IMDb