Um Caroço de Abacate (An Avocado Pit)

Some films fight; others bloom. Ary Zara’s Um Caroço de Abacate (An Avocado Pit) does both – fiercely and carefree, with no need to prove its worth in a world obsessed with validation, as if being alive wasn’t reason enough to belong. It begins on a Lisbon night, with streetlamps soft as a last breath, and ends somewhere close to recognition. In between: Larissa – her laugh, her energy, her walk, and her refusal to simply comply. A woman who commands the frame without ever raising her voice.

Larissa is a trans woman. Cláudio is a cis man. But this isn’t a story about difference – it’s about the delicate, electric space where two lives brush against each other. They don’t fall in love; they descend into something rarer: a dance of curiosity, complicity, resistance, and recognition that stretches until dawn.

An Avocado Pit feels exciting from its first frame, shot with a saturated, candy-dipped palette that echoes our Larrisa’s confidence and clarity. The colors aren’t just visual choices – they’re emotional signposts, helping audiences navigate the story’s shifting tones and truths.

Gaya Medeiros puts in a commanding performance as Larissa in An Avocado Pit.

Zara, the writer and director, builds a world where vulnerability doesn’t dull the glow – it enhances it. Larissa doesn’t ask for space; she claims it with certainty, her walk as declarative as any line of dialogue. She is freedom embodied. Her laugh doesn’t seek approval. Her steps don’t falter. She isn’t stepped on because she owns the ground she walks on, and the body she walks in. She knows who she is. She loves who she is. Do we?

There is no violence here – not because the world is kind, but because Zara, a trans filmmaker, isn’t interested in trauma as spectacle. This film doesn’t center harm. It centers presence. Possibility. A version of trans life where joy isn’t an afterthought – it’s the headline. When Larissa dances, she isn’t escaping reality; she’s rewriting it. She isn’t exceptional because she’s trans. She’s exceptional because she knows exactly who she is and the film treats that fact not as a twist, but as a foundation. It does, however, leave space for a quieter question. Would the night have ended the same if they were both cis?

Ivo Canelas and Gaya Medeiros share incredible chemistry on-screen.

Across its 20-minute runtime, An Avocado Pit moves with quiet confidence – Larissa’s, yes, but also Zara’s. The director works with clarity and deep trust; in stillness, in gestures, in what remains unsaid. Everything that lies in Cláudio’s mind. And maybe in yours. He doesn’t force catharsis here – he calmly lets it grow, arriving on its own terms. For all its visual gloss and fluidity, the film is grounded not in spectacle, but in restraint. In truth.

Zara’s eye is sharp and voice generous. As a debut short, this already feels less like a calling card and more a new way of seeing. One where trans joy isn’t surprising, but expected. One where color is not an escape, but an embodiment.

An Avocado Pit doesn’t need to shout to be heard. It simply lives in the space it has claimed, and invites you to do the same.