Neville d'Almeida
A loose adaptation of a scene from a theatre play written and directed by Thiago Justino, "Humanos Causa" shows the people of a city reclaiming their rights.
This film seeks to rescue the role of filmmaker Neville D'Almeida by using many rare images, numerous interviews, vast archival and audiovisual material.
An excerpt from Neville D'Almeida's debut feature "Jardim de Guerra" (1968), focusing on the Black Power speech made by a character played by Antonio Pitanga.
A young woman travels to solve a matter of life or death. As she seeks to do what she needs, the city exposes itself with its curious characters.
This documentary investigates the aesthetic, political and existential trajectory of emblematic Black Brazilian actor Antônio Pitanga. He career spans over five decades, and he has worked with iconic Brazilian filmmakers Glauber Rocha, Cacá Diegues and Walter Lima Jr. He was a prominent figurehead and outspoken activist during the Brazilian dictatorship, a period of unrest in Brazilian cinema. Pitanga deep dives into the world of Antônio and the history of Brazil. The documentary was directed by his daughter Camila Pitanga, one of widely recognised faces in Brazilian television and cinema right now. The film is also a poem, and a tender ode to fatherhood.
A group of playboys organizes the last party of the year in a slum before the change in weather. And for this night, beyond the usual drugs, alcohol and sex, they will receive special guests: an addict that uses and is used by the group, a country singer who was raised around the slum, a strange security guard and the owner of the place.
A poetic film essay on Gigoia Island, Rio de Janeiro, and its people, fauna and flora.
An encounter between a young woman and an older man ends up in an unexpected way.
The tragic story of the misery and abandonment Brazilian indigenous populations have been suffering for over the last 500 years. Maksuara chronicles the wisdom of indigenous people, who live in perfect harmony with nature without destroying or damaging it.
A silent film depicting a meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Pope John XXIII is screened.
In a monologue, a man explains his thoughts on the exploitation of Brazil's native people's resources.
An experimental short film directed by Neville D'Almeida, based on the ambience of Cosmococa CC4, one of the installations planned by the filmmaker in partnership with visual artist Helio Oiticica.
A documentary short on Tempo Glauber, a foundation created by filmmaker Orlando Senna and Glauber Rocha's mother Lucia in order to celebrate and preservate her son's legacy.
A short documentary on Belair, an independent Brazilian film company that lasted for only five months in 1970.
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.
An adaptation of Marcos Vinicius Faustini's rendition of José Vicente's eponymous 1971 play, a story that deals with the five children of Pedro Fogueteiro, who all live in a small town in the state of Minas Gerais and decide to go on a journey to find about their own individual identities in a moment of change lived by their generation, heavily influenced by rock music.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Solange is a recently married young woman whose wedding night did not end well. After constant fights with her husband, she decides to live through her sexual frustration by sleeping with strangers she picks up on crowded buses in Rio de Janeiro.
An unusual look at 1978 Brasilia Film Festival and the politics that make certain films fashionable or not.
The quasi-fictional story of transgender sex workers living in Rio de Janeiro's swampy red light district, who are joined by a group of hippies and a runaway stockbroker, "Mangue-Bangue" is the paradigmatic expression of the post-1968 spirit of desbunde, the Brazilian slang catchword for "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll".
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.
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 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.
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.
An extended research tour of US university film programs introduced dos Santos to the American avant-garde filmmakers, among them Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage, who would directly inspire his formally radical adaptation of an allegorical short story about adultery and colonialism by Guilherme de Figueiredo. Filmed in both Manhattan and Brazil and set against the background of the Vietnam War and its protests, Hunger for Love uses a rigorously abstract soundtrack and narrative structure to evoke the acute paranoia of the period building up to the December 1968 military coup that tipped Brazil perilously close to a conservative dictatorship. With its harsh critique of the decadent tendencies of the Sixties counterculture, Hunger for Love offers a key expression of the self-consciously “ideological” phase of Cinema Novo. -Harvard Film Archive
In the mid 1960s, while Brazil was being ruled by a military dictatorship, a young man, living in the city of Belo Horizonte, begins to approach a subversive behaviour.
In 1973, exiles from Brazil during the military dictatorship, the artist Hélio Oiticica and filmmaker Neville D’Almeida lock themselves in an apartment in Manhattan and fantasize a series of iconic sensory installations called quasi-cinema - experience blocks in Cosmococas. Recognized and awarded internationally, the work features slide projections on the walls of the rooms, showing some drawing sessions carried out by the artists, using, in an innovative way, instead of graphite lines, cocaine for doodling. Another pioneer was the use of a pocket knife as a brush, demonstrating the violence with which some paradigms needed to be cut and renewed. All of this in an extremely conservative period of Brazilian history, dictated by the censorship of the military regime.
