Guará Rodrigues
A documentary on prolific underground Brazilian filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla.
In search of a powerful hallucinogenic, five friends embark on a dangerous journey deep into the Amazon. But a bad trip isn't the only threat as they discover when they stumble across the hidden camp of the crazed Dr. Moreau and his murderous animal-human hybrid creations.
In the B&W first part, a customs agent, Dr. Amnésio, examines some reels of film, a documentary Orson Welles made about Brazil, and tries to confiscate the material. The color second part shows a party in which those repression agents celebrate their victory against freedom and creativity.
Zé Rocha is a director trying to shoot his first film. He dreams of making a professional movie, and starts shooting in 35mm. But as his budget begins to fade, he changes to Black-and-White, then gradually down to 16mm, Super-8 and, in the end, to his despair, to the video format. With the help of Edna Marla, producer who is searching for the Holy Grail of a genuinely 100% Brazilian celluloid; Dona Martírio, his mother, former left-wing activist; Guará Rodrigues, an underground Brazilian movie star; and Lila Lessa, who stars in a 6 p.m. soap opera, they develop strategies and outlandish plans to win the insane battle of filmmaking in Brazil.
At same time as it dives into excess and violence of Brazilian reality, Curra Urbana tri to insert itself in anti ilusionist modern aesthetic reinstarting a dialogue from Jean Luc Godard and some of later Brazilian apropriators especially those of Cinema Marginal.
Neusa Suely, a prostitute, is accused by her pimp Vado of stealing his money. To get rid of the accusations, she blames her neighbour, Veludo. The three characters then start to live a small tragedy set in the underground Rio de Janeiro scene.
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
The history of Brazilian popular music in the 20th Century, focusing specially on the life and works of intriguing singer Mário Reis, a loner who, with his special way of singing - whispering and softly saying the words - in a time when singers with potent voices ruled, was in a way a forerunner of Bossa Nova style.
Movie director gets crazy while shooting a film, and goes to a mental institution. There, he leads a revolt, kidnapping a group of Human Rights activists and demanding a camera as ransom.
Driver who was left by his wife, who wanted to try a career in the movies, has to deal with their son's revolt when the latter finds his mother, whom he thought dead, singing in a nightclub.
Collective film with five segments around the works and life of brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade.
In Rio de Janeiro, after an altercation with his father and mother, a young man named Bebeto kills his family and goes to a movie theater, where he watches four weird vignettes.
Based upon the life story of Father Antonio Vieira, born in Lisbon in 1608 and deceased in Salvador, Bahia, in 1697. He's considered the first Brazilian writer and one of the most important aesthete of linguistic and of the Portuguese language of all times, a master in the art of metaphor, of verbal relations and analogy. He was persecuted and condemned by the Portuguese Court of Inquisition due to his position against native slavery, against the intolerance to the Jewish people and to the colonial politics of exploration.
Little known actor, Jack Noah, is working on location in the dictatorship of Parador at the time the dictator dies. The dictator's right hand man, Roberto, makes Jack an offer he cannot refuse.. to play the dictator. Jack's acting skills fool the masses but not close friends and employees of the dictator.
Dede (Guilherne Fontes) is a Brazilian teen who lives with his middle-class grandparents who are members of the local communist party. When his grandmother dies, his grandfather's health soon fades to the point where he can't speak or walk. The local party officials ask Dede to continue to family tradition and take over his grandfather's position of social authority, but when Dede is introduced to cocaine by his best friend Alpino (Marcos Palmeira), the attraction to drugs is more appealing to him than political activism.
French poet Blaise Cendrars arrives by sea on the city of Rio de Janeiro and lives s life of bohemian parties during the celebration of carnaval.
In the near future, in the country of Kali, a group of young terrorists carry out robberies, kidnappings and murders under the orders of a mysterious big boss known as "Entity" and are pursued by the pompous and inefficient Special Police.
Irreverent adaptation of great writer Machado de Assis's masterpiece "Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas" ("Brás Cubas's Posthumous Memories"). A dead man tells about his love life and adventures, specially his affair with Virgília, a dubious married woman.
Poor people who live in the slums in Rio de Janeiro decide to occupy an empty apartment building in the rich part of the city. Meanwhile, a rich girl falls in love with a poor composer. Based on the musical play "Pobre Menina Rica", by Vinícius de Moraes and Carlos Lyra.
Fantasy comedy about Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade, one of the most important icons of Modernism in Brazil. In the film, Oswald is played by two actors: Ítala Nandi, as his feminine anima, and Flávio Galvão, as the masculine half.
Young guy from the poor Northeast region of Brazil comes to Rio de Janeiro to try his luck. Naturally, he is faced with many adversities along the way.
A public relations man is invited to guide an American millionaire during his stay in Rio de Janeiro. He gets involved in the most bizarre situations, from orgiastic mega-parties to confrontations with the police, meetings with drug dealers and movie stars, facing corruption and even murder.
Noronha is a low middle-class civil servant who lives with his frustrated wife Gorda and their three elder daughters. The youngest one, virginal Silene, is unexpectedly sent back home. Noronha discovers she has been expelled from boarding school for having killed a female cat and her seven newborns in a hysterical fit. Many dark family secrets will emerge from that episode leading to tragic events.
The idiosyncratic adventures of a group of individuals who share the same house.
Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
In a movie studio, the actors are getting made up and the crew is waiting to begin shooting the film. Grande Otelo, the bungling "king of the deck", and Marta Anderson, the blond and provocative star of the show, recite in the historical scenario of the chanchadas, the abandoned studios of Cinédia. "The photography is splendid, it is a sort of parallel song, of critique, of parody, of understanding of a certain light typical of Brazilian cinema of the times, already re-created, already stylized. And with the older actors, Otelo, Lewgoy and the others, something very important happened in the artistic perception, seeing again, doing again, it was already a concrete metalanguage" (J. Bressane).
Bressane's second London film, shot in six days in his apartment. "I had seen the French avant-garde films of the 1920's and naturally the title cites Breton. But underneath it can also be read in many ways. It is a cinema that is invented on the spur of the moment, like you invent an instrument to play music and then abandon it. This film came out like an improvisation, a total risk. It is a deconstruction of meaning but not in the analytical, intellectual sense. I have always tried to lose myself with my films. There is no trace of American or French underground cinema. If anything, it is the idea of home movies, there were many ideas for digital films long before digital film existed. This film made itself, it was like a jazz improvisation. Amor Louco is a lost object, it doesn't speak any language, it has no signs, no letters, no captions. And in the scene where the cataract is cut with the razor blade, it was the adventure of the film itself that was put to the test".
First film by Julio Bressane shot in exile, "Memoirs"is a film about a man who repeatedly kills the same type of woman in same places, the same way. Filmed on the streets of London.
A dysfunctional family, composed of a prostitute and two gays, one strong and the other fragile and stupid, lives a routine life in Rio de Janeiro. When the slut threatens the other two to stop supporting them, they decide to find an odalisque as an alternative to keep their easy life.
A banker, Spider lives with three women. The tycoon is a caricature of Brazil's bourgeoisie, his trajectory is the starting point for an essay on the mental underdevelopment of Brazilian elites, in which black humor sets the tone for criticism.
“The theme is the revolt of the slaves, the repressed who because they have no way out decide to turn ten or twenty days into an eternity. So they kill their masters. They will certainly die, but that space of freedom, even if it only lasts a week, for them is an eternity.”
Sonia Silk dreams of being a singer of the National Radio and in order to survive she surrenders to tourists in Copacabana. Her brother, Vidimar, Dr. Grilo's domestic servant, falls in love with his employer. Sonia's mother and Vidimar thinks that both are possessed by the devil. Sônia, who sees spirits lower in beings and objects strangers, resolves to look for the father of Santo Joãozinho da Gomeia.
There are many concurrent plots in this film. The main one being the one in which a desperate guy kills his parents with an open razor and then goes to the movies. At the same time, other violent events happen when two girls realize they are in love with each other.
Santamaria and Urtigo are two bandits on the run, one is white, the other black. Santamaria is a mystical visionary and believes in the imminent coming of a purifying angel. Urtiga, his inseparable companion, is a simple-minded and ingenious man who follows Santamaria around and participates in the crimes he commits. The two bandits take over a house after kidnapping its owner and his girlfriend.
Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.
Edson is having an affair with a left-wing aspiring movie director during Brazil's military dictatorship years. He tries to get some easy money for her film, but ends up being arrested and tortured as his torturers suspect he's involved in a plot to overthrow the militar government.
During the Brazilian military government, journalist Estêvão is sent from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia to cover the important statement of a minister, but takes the opportunity to deliver incriminating documents to another one.
