Jece Valadão
Brazil, 1970s: the country is living under a military dictatorship which lasted 21 years. During that period, the most produced and seen cinema was the pornochanchadas: a diverse genre that combined erotic atmosphere and popular appeal. A review of a dark period of one of the most charming countries in the universe is made through the most unprecedented way – solely through the images and sounds from a selection of the pornochanchada films, in a wry, pleasurable mash-up.
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.
An obsessive photographer crazy for female feet; a man that projects himself on situations he sees on TV; a simple public officer that receives a proposal from a corrupt Judge; a slaughter in a marriage crisis and a broken heart secretary that dreams to get married. These five characters will have their lives changed from a hot weekend.
Anesio Gebara is well known in Rio de Janeiro: he owns a samba school and he bankrolls an illegal lottery. This drama series follows this man--who is seen throughout the city as a mob boss and probable drug trafficker--his family and his complicated relationship with his sons.
The life of Brazilian soccer player, Garrincha, considered to be one of the greatest players of all time, with his uniquely original style. He had arched legs, a passion for women and booze. Also had a much talked extramarital affair with singer Elza Soares and died in relative decadence. The movie focuses on his zenith, from 1953 until the World Championship and the Rio Regional Championship, in 1962.
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
Just when her family starts believing that she is dead, and that they can expect a rich heritage, Tieta returns from São Paulo to her native village in Bahia, which she had been forced to leave long ago because of some involvement with a goat herd. Believed to be fabulously rich - and nobody knows how - she brings to the great disappointment of her family a young step-daughter and heir. With the arrival of Tieta turmoil enters into the life of her family and their fellow villagers. Most particularly into the life of her nephew - promised to the Church - and the young aspiring mayor.
A senator having contacts with illegal betting activities is killed by the man who is his right arm, who wanted to get his position. But the power structure resents this disturbance and can fall apart, specially since there's a witness.
A caboclo's soul wanders through purgatory (or hell), visiting many places until he boards a ship whose destination is unknown.
Zionists hire a hitman to kill a Nazi war criminal exiled in a Latin American country, where he's being protected by the local dictator.
Four Third-World Christs try to stop the American industrialist John Brahms in Glauber Rocha's experimental film inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's murder.
In the early seventies in Rio de Janeiro, detective Mariel Moryscötte de Mattos belonged to a special police force called "The Golden Men". This powerful group of the elite of the police was created with the intention of eliminate crime from Rio de Janeiro, and they had privileges above law to expedite their action against the outlaws. However, absolute power in wrong hands corrupts, and this group formed the "Death Squad", executing criminals without the conventional trial from the justice.
Documentary on famous Brazilian actresses, female directors and the role of women in Brazilian film history.
A Deusa Negra is a love story that spans two centuries. In 18th century Yorubaland, Prince Oluyole is taken prisoner in the course of internecine warfare fanned by overseas slave traders. He is sold into slavery in Brazil. In present day Nigeria, at his father's deathbed, the young Babatunde promises to go to Brazil and search for traces of their once-enslaved ancestors. Beginning with a Candomblé ritual, his journey takes him ever deeper into this culture and, in a dream-like sequence, affords him a deeper understanding of his ancestors' suffering and powers of resistance. Balogun effortlessly links present with past, real with magical worlds and discourse with trance. The hypnotic atmosphere is also heightened by the music of the Nigerian drummer Remi Kabaka, which plays with repetitive patterns and distortions.
During an orgy of millionaires, a woman is mysteriously kidnapped and killed. The crime causes quite a stir in local society, as the investigations points to a very known addicted playboy. Although it's never said, the film is vaguely based on a real case happened in 1975, when socialite Ângela Diniz was killed by her lover Doca Street, in Búzios, Brazil.
In a little forgotten town three bandits robbers a bank and manages to run away with a lot of dough. The police is triggered killing two of them after a pursuit and Ruth now is the only to scape.
A man leads a double life: during the day, he's the manager of a car shop but, when the sun goes down, he becomes a crook, pretending to be a playboy (the target being old women), a sultan who is gathering money for his cause, helped by a fake baron and his beautiful daughter.
Otavio has to find and marry Madame Bettina's daughter if he wants to inherit her fortune.
Young woman needs money to pay her mother's medical treatment. She gets a work in a bar that is, in fact, a cover for a prostitution net. She is drugged and raped while some photographs are taken, to be presently used as blackmail, to force her to work as a hooker. She accepts her fate but starts a serious relationship with a reporter, to whom she doesn't dare tell the truth. She wants to leave that life behind and get married, but the gangsters won't allow it. Until one of the girls decides to tell the reporter about the underground activities going on, and he calls the police.
While Dona Betina, owner of a very famous bordello in Rio de Janeiro, was being buried, an old scoundrel remembers his own past.
In a small town in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, a woman rebels against local morality after her child dies, with tragic results.
Man raised in a brothel tries to earn his living as a pimp, but gets in trouble when his girlfriend cheats him with an older man.
Two outcasts fight over a pair of shoes in a run-down boarding-house room.
The film depicts the arrival of immigrants in the city of Espírito Santo following the history of Carlos, an Italian who struggles for his place against Hermann Gunter, a German colonist who rules the region.
A man seeks revenge after his sister get raped by an unknown foreign, identified only by scar and a missing finger. But his payback journey is a long way and bears its surprises.
Hit man does his part in a deal, but doesn't get the money he was promised. For the treason, he decides to eliminate them all.
Bruno is a physician whose license had been revoked, due to some ethical problems in the past. He gathers some criminals to kidnap the children of two powerful bankers. While the police faces contradictory evidence and clues, Bruno starts killing the other criminals, to keep the ransom for himself.
A decadent hooker, her pimp and the bordello's gay cleaner fight over the gigolo's missing money, with the utmost mental cruelty.
Alfredo, a rich playboy and restless womanizer lives a happy life until receive threats from several cuckolds. Things get worse when each of the seven involved women accuse each other causing a big mess.
Bebeto is a playboy who commits a passional crime killing a friend because of his fiancee. Feeling cornered he kills other four people to survive and scapes to the countryside where meets Quinzinho, a professional hitman who protect him. Then Bebeto starts a romance with a local woman causing the wrath of the population and forcing him to leave.
Based on real-life Brazilian bandit "Mineirinho", the film follows the story of Zezé, a man falsely accused by sensasionalist press of being a high-caliber criminal who suddenly becomes one of the most wanted men of Rio de Janeiro.
True story of a famous and violent Brazilian outlaw nicknamed "Paraíba". After being shot, Paraíba tries to hide inside a church, where he starts remembering episodes of his criminal life.
While still a child, Lollipop falls in love with her orphaned cousin Silvio, who has been raised as a member of the family by her father, Dr. Arnaldo, a highly respected government official. Years pass, and to Lollipop's dismay, Silvio becomes engaged to her cousin Leticia. During the engagement party, the enraged Lollipop seduces Silvio, and sometime later, she reveals to Leticia that she is pregnant as a result of the encounter.
For his first in a long series of wildly imaginative literary adaptations, dos Santos reinvented Nelson Rodrigues' novel about a pathological gangster with solid gold teeth and a voracious appetite for women and power. Embracing radically modernist narrative techniques, Golden Mouth offers a splintered, refractive portrait of brutal masculinity that returns repeatedly to the same moment from different vantages, each time revealing unexpected perspectives on the brutal yet strangely charming criminal. Lurid and disturbing, Golden Mouth delivers a savage satire of marriage and class pretensions, revealing a similar venality at the corroded heart of the sanctimonious bourgeoisie, the moneyed elite and the working class as they all mercilessly claw their way up and down the rickety and ruthlessly hierarchical Brazilian social ladder. -Harvard Film Archive
A young man must choose between two women. The one brings him the money, but the other he loves. Directed by Billy Davis (as J. P. de Carvalho).
This film captures the criminal behavior of two young Copacabana thugs (the "cafajestes"). The two plan a blackmail coup against a rich old man, using nude pictures of a lady on a deserted beach. But things don't always happen as planned.
Three men who never met each other are hired by a mysterious client to carry out a daring bank robbery.
Three young women sharing a room in a boarding house owned by a very strict matron dream of becoming famous in show busines
A talented songwriter of sambas is forced to face the social injustices of the city around him.
Banned by Brazil’s Federal Department of Public Safety, Rio, 40 Graus is a landmark film that ushered in the wave of Cinema Novo in Brazil. The film chronicles a day in the life of five peanut vendors from Rio de Janeiro's favelas. This was one of the first Brazilian films to address the issues of race, poverty, and class.
Intent on offering his fiancée a better life, countryman heads for Rio de Janeiro in search of a place in the sun...
Renato and Miro are black brothers raised by a white family in an old mansion in Rio de Janeiro. Renato, a graduated lawyer, has always looked for dignity, winning in life due to his honesty and search for social recognition. His brother, on the contrary, is a rebel small time crook who believes his behavior is the product of the treatment he received while being rased by the whites.
