Of everything that exists on the Internet, there is also a pornographic variant. Thus the titular Rule 34 of Júlia Murat’s third feature film, which won the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2022. During the day, 23-year-old law student Simone rigorously discusses the role of women in Brazilian society in the lecture hall. She works at a center for victims of domestic violence and researches the causes of racism and femicide. At night, she performs in front of her webcam in a sex chat room and is incited to even more extreme practices. Her private life contrasts with her intellectual ambitions: a free-spirited mix of self-defense classes and safe space sexual experimentation with her university friend-lovers, along with video calls with a confidante and BDSM practitioner who steers her down this precarious path. As she seeks more radical forms of sexual gratification, the lines between body empowerment and self-harm, social responsibility and personal pleasure blur. She struggles to balance her urges with her professional life and commitment. Even the anonymity the internet once offered threatens to erode. Her friends are concerned. Simone insists on living out her sexuality: »Sorry if that’s not feminist enough for you.« One of the film’s edgier themes, ultimately rooted in the question of the efficacy and possibilities of personal-political agency.

This film includes graphic and disturbing scenes of sexual nature and scenes of violence.

Find here the Q&A with director Júlia Murat.

Awards for ›Rule 34‹
Golden Leopard – Locarno Film Festival 2022