Sussurros (2023 film)

Sussurros
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Sacheen Ferreira
Written by	Sacheen Ferreira
Screenplay by	Vicente Souza
Story by	Sacheen Ferreira
Produced by	Sacheen Ferreira Augusto Silveira
Starring	Octávia Baptista Alexis Chayton Chaska Alves
Cinematography	Assunção Magalhães
Edited by	Jorge Varejão
Production company	Avecanto
Distributed by	Produções Choachuã
Release dates	22 October 2023 (2023-10-22) (Montecara)
Running time	85 minutes
Country	Choachua
Languages	Luzelese Makoche

Sussurros (Estmerish: Whispers) is a 2023 Choachuan Psychological horror written and directed by Sacheen Ferreira and produced by Avecanto. Set to premiere at the 84th Montecara Film Festival, it was Sacheen Ferreira's directorial debut at the film festival. "Sussurros" is the story of Catori, a mestizo college student who acquires the unsettling ability to communicate with the deceased following a car accident. Her world takes a terrifying turn as she discovers that she's being haunted by the vengeful ghost of a former classmate.

Ferreira's vision of the film was to promote indigenous Makoche culture and practices as well as to use it as a vehicle to draw attention to the struggles faced by indigenous peoples, particularly women, as victims of crime.

Plot

The film opens to the scene of a college classroom, where a professor drones on about the importance of spirits within the Makoche view of the natural world. After a lengthy pan across the sat students in the lecture hall, the camera settles on the figure of a young mestizo woman - Catori (Octávia Baptista). As she finishes noting down the most recent titbits of the professor's monologue, circling a claim on belief of human-spirit interaction, the bell signifies the end of the lecture and, as we come to learn as she steps outside to snow swept sidewalks, the end of the semester. Before the students rush out, the professor pleads with them to stay safe and to report anything they hear about Josefina to the campus authorities.

In between texts to her mother, who is coming to pick her up from a local train station, Catori impatiently waits outside the lecture hall. Eventually a second student, her friend Tiana, joins her on the walk to the station. The two converse idly about Nativity plans and their current classes, as well as Josefina's disappearance. Catori is eager to talk about what the professor had been discussing about Makoche belief in spirits, but Tiana remarks she found the lesson boring. At the station the two part, with Tiana taking a train and Catori returns to messaging her mother Marianna. Soon enough her mother's car appears and Catori rushes over in excitement to return home for the holidays.

After spending some time catching-up in the car, Marianna drives out of the station and begins the journey home. The drive from the university at São José to their home in the north of the country is a long one but eventually they leave the highway for quieter backroads, lands untouched and primordial, and it quickly becomes night. Conversation between Marianna and Catori continues, with the two discussing Catori's plans for the holiday season. Catori expresses excitement to see the rest of the family, Marianna questions her on her social life at university, and before Catori is able to respond the car is t-boned by another vehicle on the backroads. The car is hurtled off the road and into the wilderness, as both passengers within scream before it cuts to black.

The sequence of events after the crash betrays the in and outs of consciousness that Catori experiences, hearing voices, seeing people, lights and shadows. An indeterminate amount of time later, Catori flutters awake in the bed of a hospital room. The only individual in the room with her is a man - her father - Mateus (Chaska Alves). His hands are tented in prayer and he has not noticed Catori has awoken, she hears her mother speak to her in Makoche but a scan of the room reveals that she is not there. Croaking awake, Mateus jumps to attention and holds her hand as she asks what happened. Mateus delivers the sombre news that there was a car crash, they found them no more than thirty minutes from home, and that by the time they had arrived to the hospital Marianna had passed away. A funeral is held shortly after. A final send off for Marianna sees her departed in song, as family members sing in Makoche as her coffin is lowered into the ground. Despite their best efforts, Mateus and Catori spend the Nativity season alone and in mourning.

Come January, Mateus takes Catori back to university and tells her to keep in touch because they need to support each other. As Catori nods and leaves the car to enter her dormitory, she watches as the car leaves up the road - and sees a figure watching it from beneath a nearby tree. Thinking nothing of it, she returns home. The monotony of the next few days as she settles in is only broken by a tide of condolences from her course-mates and roommates. On the first day of classes, as Catori walks to school, she spots the figure again. This time they are sat on a bench on the campus grounds, and being far closer, it is obvious to her this is Josefina (Alexis Chayton). When she goes to reach her phone to call the authorities, she's lost sight of her. Concluding that she's seeing things as a result of her concussion a month prior, she goes to the hospital to check on her own health. As she sits in the waiting room, she hears someone call out to her in whispered Makoche - but no one she recognises is sat in the waiting room. The doctor sees her and assures her she's alright, but she may be experiencing auditory hallucinations as a response to the trauma of the crash and the death of a loved one.

Her entire day is filled with these continuing, growing louder, whispers. In attempt to calm down, she runs a bath, but is still buffeted by those voices. As she lays in bed that evening, she is frightened. There is a discordant calling out for her as she tosses in bed. The closer she falls to sleep, the louder this demanding call echoes and it is eventually accompanied by a rhythmic banging on the door. Unable to take it, she moves to open the front door of the house with trepidation - but no one is there. As she turns to go back up to her dorm, Josefina is sat on the stairs leading upwards. Catori's scream is silent, mouth agape but making no noise. As Josefina stands up to move to her, Catori notices that she's covered in bruises and blemishes. For the first time since her auditory hallucinations have begun, Catori hears 'help me' in Makoche as opposed to a call for her name. A stammering Catori offers to call the police, a hospital, her family - but Josefina silences her with a glance. Catori begins to question what she's seeing, telling Josefina that she's a figment of her own imagination given the trauma she's experienced. That she's projecting the loss of her family onto the loss of a girl she scarcely knew, and that her mind is damaged from the crash. Josefina responds by grabbing Catori's wrists and holding her hands to her neck, uttering the words "murdered" in Makoche. Now believing Josefina to be a manifestation of the last things she remembered before the crash, Catori agrees to humour what she believes is her own brain. She pledges to Josefina that she will find her killer, and the ghost departs, allowing Catori to get sleep.

Catori leaves her house the following day with the intention to speak to a therapist, but she's accosted on the side of the road by Josefina again. Josefina reminds her of her promise, and now incredibly concerned about the nature of what she's experiencing, believes it more to be what she was learning about - this connection between the spiritual world and the real one. Catori follows where the spirit of Josefina takes her, as they travel away from the campus accommodation grounds into the woods. Catori attempts to talk to Josefina, who does not respond, and she ends up conversing with herself over the situation she is in. She fears what she is experiencing. The whisper return to her whenever she considers turning back to look for help. Eventually they arrive at a small cabin some hours away on foot. By its state, it is clearly abandoned. Josefina remains outside and gestures to window at the back of the cabin. Catori contemplates running and Josefina turns to her, appearing before her, revealing, deep purple marks along her pale white neck, and continues to chant 'promise'.

Catori enters the home and immediately has to cover her face with her shirt, as the stench of decay permeates the house. Moving overturned furniture, she makes her way to the bedroom where she finds a mangled corpse sprawled over the bed. Rotting, decayed and unrecognisable, only a satchel that she recognises as being Josefina's confirms what she thinks. She begins to hyperventilate, wondering what circumstances have led her here, if the spirit of Josefina is real, and she slumps onto the floor and begins to cry. An attempt to call the authorities fails due to a lack of signal. Josefina returns to her now between her tears and Catori angrily asks the spirit what she is and what her goal in bringing her here was. Josefina does not reply except to tell her she needed to prove to her she was dead for what she was going to tell her next. Josefina tells Catori that her father is the reason why she is dead, and that he strangled her to death in this cabin.

Unable to deal with this information and accusation, Catori leaves the home before a loud, piercing wail forces her unconscious. She awakes at the door to the home, Josefina's bag at hand, and for the first time in a while, complete silence. Unsure as to what she's even experiencing anymore, she idly thumbs the bag in her hands and feels a phone. Charging it, brings it to life, and the numbers of the password are whispered to her. She unlocks the phone to a series of messages between Josefina and her father, where it becomes apparently clear to her that Josefina intended on telling her about her relationship with her father because she no longer felt comfortable doing it. Josefina's spirit appears, far meeker now, to apologise for her having to find out this way; and confirms her father killed her to silence their affair. Catori questions what Josefina wants her to do now, and the spirit tells her it is up to her - she has the information, but it is her choice to do with it as she wishes. Josefina's essence disappears, and silence returns to Catori.

As she leaves the home, harrowing experiences behind her, she reaches for a cell phone now receiving signal - and dials the number of the police.