Wearing a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes as a sea of air-kissing preteen beauty queens sweetly chant her name, we meet Memi as she regally accepts a coveted title spot in the Orfeo troupe to parade at Carnival as the Queen of Chocolate. Manuel Abramovich’s splendidly shot observational short presents Memi’s path to Carnival in a series of poignant scenes. With the camera tightly focused on her face, Memi sits silently, her expressions at once pensive, passive, and bored. Meanwhile, her mom and a cavalcade of other women (perpetually off screen) chatter as they elaborately coif her hair and zip tie a nine-pound, rhinestone-studded headdress atop the hairdo to get her ready to parade. Strategically peppered throughout these preparations are glimpses of Memi’s daily life, which is filled with many other competitions—tennis, swimming, and hockey. Tension builds. Will Memi buckle under the weight of her painful crown and seemingly endless obligation to compete?  WFM