Mars One · reception & legacy
2022 · Gabriel Martins
How Mars One has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Premiered quietly at Sundance 2022, then kept levelling up: Brazil picked it as its Oscar entry, Ava DuVernay's ARRAY scooped it up, and a Netflix release turned a small Belo Horizonte family drama into an international word-of-mouth discovery.
Its footprint
The title is a nod to the real (and really doomed) Mars One venture — the private Mars-colonization project Martins stumbled on while writing, struck that people were planning an exit to another planet while this one burned.
Where it stands
A certified Letterboxd hidden gem — the 2020s Brazilian film that people who've seen it won't stop recommending to people who haven't.
Named by the director
Influences Gabriel Martins has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.
- Faces (1968) — Martins cited Cassavetes' tight, lingering framing of faces as a direct influence on how he shot his actors for empathy.
- A Woman Under the Influence (1974) — Named alongside Faces as a Cassavetes film that was 'influencing me in many ways' on the film's intimate style.
- Killer of Sheep (1978) — Martins said Burnett's way of shooting Watts convinced him his own neighborhood could carry a universal film.
- John Cassavetes — Cited by name as a key influence on the film's close, empathetic camerawork.
- Charles Burnett — Named as 'very important to me' for proving a filmmaker could film his own community.