(The Lost Found) Boy Man Bunny
2021 · 25m · UK
Directed by Daniel Ifans
Genres: documentary
Tones: melancholic, tender
Pablo Woodward, a Brazilian orphan from the favelas of Salvador who was adopted into privileged English society at age six, has spent three decades struggling to find his place — and in 2016, at 32, he reinvented himself as 'The Disco Bunny,' a glittery street performer in Brighton with a mission to spread joy. What begins as a portrait of an eccentric character quickly reveals deeper layers about identity, race, abandonment, the English class system, homophobia, and the meaning of family.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Brazilian street-kid-turned-English-adoptee-turned-Disco-Bunny on Brighton sidewalks — 25 minutes of one extremely specific human being, which is the only reason to make a documentary. The bunny suit either earns its keep or it doesn't, and I suspect it does.
Twenty-five minutes is a long commitment, but a Brazilian favela orphan turned Brighton's disco bunny is precisely the kind of unguarded subject Errol Morris built a career around — and the Wolfpack comparison is earned by the specificity. I'd watch it.
25 minutes is a long sit but the subject — a Brazilian-orphan-turned-English-Disco-Bunny channeling his unremembered street-kid past into a costume — has the layered specificity that good vérité needs. The bunny costume against grey British streets is its own visual thesis.
Reviews
An engrossing story that reminds its audience about the importance of having fun — watching him dance to his boombox, he seemed to invoke a collective madness on the grey streets of Britain, like some exotic alien from another planet with a magic off-switch for British reserve.
Festivals
- Raindance Film Festival 2021
- London Lift-Off Film Festival 2022