Hilda Furacão (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈiwdɐ fuɾaˈkɐ̃w̃]; English: Hilda Hurricane) is a Brazilian miniseries produced by TV Globo which originally aired from May 27 to July 23 of 1998, with a total of 32 episodes. The miniseries took the time slot of Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (English: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands) and was followed by Labirinto (English: Labyrinth). It was written by Glória Perez and directed by Wolf Maya, Maurício Farias, and Luciano Sabino.
The miniseries was based on Roberto Drummond's book by the same name, which was in turn based on the life of a prostitute, Hilda Maia Valentim, known in the red light district of Belo Horizonte as Hilda Furacão.
The cast includes Ana Paula Arósio, Rodrigo Santoro, Danton Mello, Eva Todor, Paulo Autran, Thiago Lacerda, Tarcísio Meira, and Rogério Cardoso.
Contents
Plot
The most sought-after prostitute in the Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, brothels during the '50s and '60s, Hilda Müller (Ana Paula Arósio) was the daughter of a highly respected middle-class family. She scandalized society by breaking away from her family and shattering taboos, fleeing on her wedding day and seeking refuge in a brothel and adopting the alias Hilda Furacão. The miniseries contrasts antagonistic contexts (religiosity and profligacy; revolution and counter-revolution), as well as protagonist characters (Hilda Furacão and Frei Malthus (Rodrigo Santoro)). The series ends during the '60s, after the 1964 Brazilian coup d'etat.
Production
The mission of adapting the book Hilda Furacão for TV was given to Glória Perez by Mário Lúcio Vaz, then director of Central Globo de Produções. Perez ended up busying herself with other work, and Hilda's concept went through several potential authors until she returned to the project in 1997. To portray the 60s, Perez spoke with activists of the time, including Mário Lago (also a member of the cast) and Apolônio de Carvalho.
Ana Paulo Arósio, then hired by rival network SBT, was specially assigned by Globo for the miniseries. The idea for the casting came from director Wolf Maya.
Scenes which took place in the fictional Santana dos Ferros were recorded in Tiradentes, where the production temporarily closed streets and altered facades. The Hotel Glória, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, passed as the Minas Tênis Clube, and the Niterói City Council served as the Belo Horizonte City Council.
Internet virality
The series went viral on the internet in November of 2023, when scenes featuring the titular protagonist (Ana Paula Arósio) and her love interest Frei Malthus (Rodrigo Santoro) began to circulate on social media, primarily as TikTok clips, giving rise to various memes by anglophone audiences. One catalyst may have been an interview on The Graham Norton Show with American actress Laura Linney in which she said she "got the best kiss" in the film Love Actually with Rodrigo Santoro, leading fans to look into Santoro's previous work.