Sex, suspense and danger in Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz’s ‘Motel Destino’

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz delivers a tropical take on film noir in “Motel Destino”, an erotic thriller set on the sun-bleached shores of Northeastern Brazil. Aïnouz tells us why his home state of Céara was the perfect backdrop for this brooding tale, and why the clichéd gender dynamics of genre movies were due an update. We talk about toxic masculinity and the violent undercurrents that feature in his films which are a reflection of the social reality the filmmaker has observed in Brazil and beyond.