Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically

Drama

★ Shortlisted by em

Programme: Primetime
Year: 2026
Runtime: 110 min
Country: Brazil
Language: Portuguese
Premiere: North American Premiere
TMDB rating: 9.4 (7 votes)

1988: A Brazilian flight attendant named Fernando jets between Rio and New York, loves many men, and lives life to the fullest. He ignores the fact that lots of people around him are contracting a mysterious illness. When he himself is diagnosed with HIV, he resolves to fight it. Taking a risk, he smuggles a drug out of the US and into Brazil, where it is illegal.

From the TIFF programme

The first-ever series from renowned Brazilian filmmaker Marcelo Gomes tells the true story of a group of young flight attendants who smuggle treatment drugs from America into the hands of patients with AIDS in 1980s Brazil.

Young flight attendant Nando (Johnny Massaro, The Son of a Thousand Men) leads a glamorous, carefree life, revelling both in Brazil’s neon-lit 1980s club scene and a passionate affair with a closeted football star. Everything changes, though, when Nando begins experiencing strange and frightening symptoms, and is diagnosed with HIV.

At first, Nando tries to ignore the looming danger of his disease, which carries great stigma. But when a beloved performer and friend is struck down in her prime, she makes a dying request to her adopted son Raul (Ícaro Silva): tell people what happened to me, and speak its name. Raul and Nando are galvanized. Nando soon realizes that, with the help of his colleague and best friend Lea (Bruna Linzmeyer), he can access AZT — a new, life-saving drug — during his frequent trips to the US, smuggling it back into Brazil where it is hard to access, thus helping the wider community, possibly saving lives.

At a time when joy and dread were intertwined, Oxygen Masks Will (Not) Drop Automatically poignantly surveys a queer cohort forced to save itself. The vibrancy of these characters and those they represent — so very young to be grappling with a devastating epidemic, and unaided by the institutions that should protect them — is a testament to their strength, tenacity, and rapturous determination to live.

GEOFF MACNAUGHTON

Content advisory: strobe lighting, sexual content, nudity, coarse language