Helena Ignez
A self-portrait short film by veteran Brazilian filmmaker Sylvio Lanna.
Ana, a Portuguese actress, dives into Brazil's current atmosphere of identity and political crisis while trying to portray in a feature film the colourful life of famous singer and actress Carmen Miranda, who helped define Brazil's identity.
The raft man Manuel Jacaré was swallowed by the sea when Orson Welles was filming It's All True in 1942. The fact evokes memories of the dictatorship of the Estado Novo, of World War II, of Ceará fishermen's struggle for labor rights and housing in their traditional space - target of real estate speculation.
Helena Ignez is one of the main female figures of Brazilian cinema. She developed a new style of acting. Nowadays, she directs independent films. The documentary tells some of the History of Brazilian cinema, its political context and Helena's trajectory.
Experimental movie about Rio de Janeiro's Museum of Modern Art's Movie Archive (Cinemateca).
Morro do Castelo was chosen by the Portuguese to found Rio de Janeiro city. It was an important historical and architectural reference. Despite its relevance, the hill was destroyed by urban reforms aimed to promote real state speculation.
A film in which dream and reality intertwine, A Moça do Calendário tells the story of inácio, 40, married, without a permanent job. Ex-street sweeper, he works as a mechanic at Barato da Pesada, where he dreams of the calendar girl.
In this animated fairy-tale Filly, a lesbian fairy with nimble fingers, seduces women by day dressed as a boy. But at night something strange happens and soon half the population of Whatsit Village are eagerly queuing up.
"All Paulos in the World" is a cinematographic essay about Paulo José, one of the greatest artists in Brazil, in the year in which he turns 80 years-old.
Two years of research and visits to collections, cinematheques and museums; almost seventy interviews that generated 30 hours of recorded material; more than two hundred scanned photos and more than one hundred films watched. In total, more than a thousand hours of work were needed to prepare Brazilian Cinema in the 20th Century. The work is a fascinating journey through all the cinematic cycles that Brazil lived, from the pioneering Belle Époque, through the great studios like Atlântica and Cinédia, Cinema Novo, the urban comedies of the 70's, until the resumption in the late 90's. The documentary is unique, it gives the floor to who really wrote and lived this story intensely.
They live, they act, they love. Today they remember, they relive, they live through cinema and life.
A study that unwraps a paradisiac scenery, reaching the subjects of Brazility and its force in the change of habits, breaking taboos and bringing out a magical and original reality throught its characters.
A documentary on prolific underground Brazilian filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla.
Jorge, bastard child of the infamous Red Light Bandit, decides himself to pursuit a life of crime after meeting with his father, who has been incarcerated for the last 30 years.
Two days in the life of André Provisório, a man with many occupations: private detective, drug dealer, and incorrigible seducer. Between his activities, he meets Mariana, an aspiring theater actress, and falls in love.
Experimental documentary short that debates over Rogério Sganzerla's Brazilian cult classic "The Red Light Bandit".
A road movie that follows a solitary man as he sets of on a journey to the south of Brazil. The strange characters and absurd situations he encounters along the way present an extraordinary portrait of human relations.
After 30 years in a cell for the mentally ill, Coffin Joe is finally freed. Back on the streets, the sadistic gravedigger is set on fulfilling that for which he was imprisoned: find the woman who can give him the perfect child. During his wanderings through the city of São Paulo he leaves behind a trail of horror as he faces unnatural laws and popular beliefs.
Elias sees his world threatened when his ex-wife, one recovering junkie, asks for the guard of their son. Fito is in desperation for losing his father because of Elias. Isis, who hides in a vagabond hotel, can be the salvation for Fito and Elias.
A short documentary on Belair, an independent Brazilian film company that lasted for only five months in 1970.
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.
Documentary about Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha, one of the most important names in the Cinema Novo, with interviews with some of his friends and colleagues.
Helena Ignez's first film as a director is a homage to American architect and contemporary artist Vito Acconti, who made an urban intervention over a bridge in São Paulo, transforming that space for it to be used as shelter by nearby homeless people.
Brazilian director Julio Bressane directs this religious biography on the life and work of Saint Jerome, the monk who first translated the Bible into Latin. Set both in the desert and in the posh confines of the Vatican, Jerome (Everaldo Pontes) agonizes over which Latin word would best fit its Hebrew counterpart. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
A fantastic tale in the brutal reality of a slum. The life of a boy with the rare gift of flying. Based on a Will Eisner's story
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.
Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film history.
The painter Tino, in professional and political crisis, receives a telegram from his mother-in-law, Selma, announcing her return from Europe. After his wife's death, Tino continues living with Selma, with whom he had ambiguous relations, which he now wants to sever. Weak at this impossible love, he asks the maid Enedina to lock him in his room. There, he revives memories through letters, notes and photographs. Selma's son João is waiting for her at the airport and dreams of loving fulfillment in his own mother's arms.
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.
Daily scenes of a grotesque family living in the metaphorical island of Babaloo.
“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.”
Bressane’s first color film, shot in the home of the artist Elyseu Visconti. Part of it is missing sound and final editing because the director was forced to leave Brazil. Horror and humor to deal with the subject of insanity: “In the end everyone leaves the house as though they were laboratory mice escaping, they invade the city and contaminate the world”. “If we talk about horror, this film deals with national horror, with Mojica Marins as an emblem. There might be a few touches of Corman and English horror, but it is another level of horror. What transformed the film was the location where we were shooting, the house of a 19th century painter, a receptacle of light. When I arrived and saw that house, that light, I said: ‘This is the film. This is the horror’. The meaning of the film, its appeal, derives from this laboratory of light” (J. Bressane). — Torino Film Festival
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.
Ângela Carne e Osso (Angela Meat and Bone), a young nymphomaniac, lives surrounded by delinquents, and exerts intense allure on them, dominating them all with her erotic power.
Born and raised in the misery of Brazilian slums, Jorge becomes a luxury house burglar in São Paulo and gets nicknamed "The Red Light Bandit" by the sensationalist press. In addition to wearing a red flashlight, he talks to his hostages in an irreverent tone and makes bold breakthroughs to later spend the money extravagantly. His world is the decadent neighbourhood of Boca do Lixo.
The story of a civil servant who lives with his elderly mother. Falling in love with a corrupt politician's young and rich daughter, he abandons himself to crazy and violent situations.
In a small town in Minas Gerais, the arrival of a young priest causes a commotion in the conservative atmosphere of the place, aggravated by the sudden attraction this priest feels for a beautiful girl. This forbidden love affair soon turns into an unbridled passion.
In rural Brazil, villagers battle wealthy land baros for the sake of their own survival.
Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold-up on a train carrying a small fortune.
Made in the famous "Água de Meninos" market, the greatest popular market in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Salvador is revealed without prejudices, from the world of high finance up to the sordid environment of exotic cabarets.
A man and a woman are laying on a chess-like patio. Both are trying to reach each other in the best way they can. However, for some odd reason they don't get on their feet, they don't talk to each other, and the only sounds heard are voices coming from a radio and strange sounds that seem to indicate something's about to happen.
