Zezé Motta
Facing the loss of his wife on Christmas eve, veteran of the Santos family finds joy when he has the opportunity to live Santa Claus.
What does Brazilian cinema tell us? What does Brazilian cinema tell us about black actresses and actors? ‘Pressed, Ripped Apart’, a film by Fabio Rodrigues Filho, makes use of archival sources to retrieve the trajectory of black actresses and actors who, between absences and delimited presences, between the fallacy of a racial democracy – based on the harmony among Brazil’s diverse identities – and an erasure of identity, strain the history of Brazilian audiovisual and above all, our own history.
Larissa competed for the Rio Military Police in search of the ideal of “protecting the citizen”.
Based on the book of the same name by Solomon Polakiewicz, it tells the story of Maurício, a freshman from the prestigious Federal University of Medicine, son of Cida, a nursing assistant who works hard to see the young man enter college.
During the slavery period in Brazil, a sugar cane farm was the stage for the darkest kinds of horrors. Years later, the place's cruel past is still stained in its walls, even if unnoticed, until a series of strange events starts happening and death returns to the farm. The film is divided in five short horror stories.
Zé Maria Magalhães is an innocent young man who, suddenly, sees his dreams and family destroyed by a man's greed: Miguel Ferreira da Fonseca, a powerful banker. For 15 years, Zé Maria is forced to remain hidden, in a life of lies, in another country, imprisoned by the memories of the past, having to assume a new identity. Today, he is a great farmer, owner of the Ouro Verde empire, known as Jorge Monforte, and has become one of the richest men in Brazil. The course of time only fueled his desire for revenge, making him lose the sense of right and wrong and the ability to love. Fifteen years later, he returns to Portugal, ready to avenge the past and destroy Miguel Ferreira da Fonseca.
The Devil himself comes to Earth to open his own church and the world becomes a pandemonium of delights and confusions. Based on a short story by Machado de Assis, the most famous realistic Brazilian writer of the XIX century.
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.
Biographical film of Sister Dulce, who, in life, was called the “Good Angel of Bahia”, also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and canonized by the Catholic Church. Contemplating from the 1940s to the 1980s, the film shows how the Catholic nun faced an incurable respiratory disease, machismo, the indifference of politicians and even the dogmas of the Church to dedicate her life to the care of the miserable, leaving a legacy that continues today.
The mystery surrounding the murder of a seductive and ambitious axé performer during one of her concerts.
Luiz Gonzaga decides to change his destiny and leaves his childhood home for the big city to overcome a romance. When he arrives, he meets a woman he falls in love with, the Odaleia (Nanda Costa). After the birth of his son and his wife's health complications, he decides to return to the road to ensure a better future for his son. He has a friend in Rio de Janeiro and with him leaves the little one and heads to Brazil. He didn't imagine that this distance between them would develop into a complicated relationship, enhanced by the strong personalities of both. Based on conversations between father and son, this is the story of Luiz Gonzaga, a singer and accordion player known as Rei do Baião or Gonzagão.
A film about iconic Swedish indie pop band Broder Daniel as they reunite during the summer 2008 before their last ever performance as a group. A concert held in honor of guitarist Anders who committed suicide earlier this year. It is a performance, and a portrait and a last goodbye from a band with more unconditional willpower than any other.
Based on the book O Fantástico Mistério de Feiurinha, the story combines real world and fantasy, dream and determination, with a surprising end, even for a fairy tale. The movie shows the fight of the fairy tale characters, now adults, who come together to recover the fable of the Little Ugly Princess, a beautiful Princess with a strange name, which only makes sense for those who know her story. The problem is that children and adults have forgotten the story of the Little Ugly Princess, which is as wonderful as other major fables for children. Cinderella brings together other fairy tale characters to meet the writer who keeps, lost in a small notebook, the Little Ugly Princess story.
Jéssica is a teenager from Brazilian Northeast. After being abused by her stepfather, she runs away to Recife, where starts to work with sexual tourism. Then, she meets Mark, a German tourist, and falls in love with him.
The filmmaker searches for his brother Max, who left his children without explanation. The brothers grew up in the Congo with their white father and Congolese mother. He visits their mother, who still lives in Kinshasa, and their father in Lisbon, as well as the extended family in France and Belgium. His search even takes him to Cambodia where Max was spotted. This fiction film is based on, and uses, the filmmaker's own family.
Monarchists and republicans meet in Araruna, a small fictional town in the interior of São Paulo, in 1886. The novel portrays the love story of the beautiful and wealthy Sinhá Moça - daughter of the slave, Barão Ferreira de Araruna, and sweet and submissive Mother Candida - , with the young abolitionist lawyer Dr. Rodolfo Fontes - son of Dr. Fontes, and the housewife Inêz. Together, they face the difficulties in the campaign for the abolition of slaves.
Free adaptation of Machado de Assis's short story "Pai Contra Mãe", having some of Nireu Cavalcanti's 18th Century chronicles as inspiration, the film traces parallels between life in during the slavery period and in modern Brazil.
Deep in the unknown Amazon rain forest, there is a lost subterranean city. The place was built by Vikings who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and ventured up the Amazon River, that shelters a mysterious treasure. In order to find the secret location, Bárbara (Xuxa Meneghel) and the children Riacho and Manhã will have to face many challenges. Vicious snakes and dangerous pendulum blades are only the beginning of our heroes' adventures in "Xuxa and The Treasure from the Lost City".
A light-hearted and high-spirited story, full of spice, sensuality and romance, Viva Zapato tells the tale of Dolores, a beautiful Cuban dancer who decides to leave her failing marriage and open a restaurant by the beach with her aunt from Brazil. When her aunt sends her a pair of shoes instead of the money to start up the restaurant, she angrily sells the useless gift for spare change. Her dream fades away - until she discovers that the money was hidden in the heel. The zany search for the shoes begins, as she follows the footsteps through the lively streets of Havana, running into the quirky, colorful characters that bring Viva Zapato and Dolores' dream.
The struggling Lívia despairs when she learns that her husband, before dying, lost a fortune in shady deals. Widowed and with three children, she is forced to fight for her family and leaves for the paradisiacal beach town of Maramores, where her mother Zoroastra lives. Parallel to the difficulties, Lívia discovers that she is involved in the eternal struggle of Good against Evil. In fact, Lívia is the reincarnation of Princess Cecília, the eternal passion of the vampire Bóris Vladescu, who has been pursuing her for centuries. The two met in 7th century Europe, when Bóris disputed the princess's love with Count Rogério. Nowadays, Rogério was Beto, Lívia's husband, and the two times he faced Boris, his arch-enemy, he took the worst. Boris is in Maramores to get Cecilia, his immortal beloved. Or rather, Livia, who raises the boy Zeca, who she doesn't even suspect is actually a half-vampire, son of Boris. The vampire is willing to prepare his son to take his place, but Zeca is reluctant to accept his condition, much to his father's despair. With Bóris comes a legion of vampires willing to terrorize the residents of the peaceful city. Among them, the splendid Mina, his wife, and the gallant Victor, who involves the sweet Ciça in a game of seduction. Vampires are closely watched by the flustered Galileo Van Burger, a vampire hunter who failed to prevent his wacky son Bartô from being bitten. Who also keeps an eye on the vampires is the mystical Zoroastra, mother of Lívia, a modern witch, who owns the main inn in Maramores. And the mysterious Ezekiel, in reality an angel who came down to Earth to protect Lívia and Zeca from the evil that persecutes them. Engineer Rodrigo also arrives in the city, followed by his ex-girlfriend Lara. The two are the first victims of vampires. Lara is bitten by Victor and becomes an evil vampire, due to her bad temper. Rodrigo is bitten by Mina, who becomes pregnant and is expecting a daughter from him, which she says is from Boris. Meanwhile, Rodrigo is used by Boris to approach Lívia. Who does not like this involvement is Augusto, a friend of Lívia who has loved her in the past. Augusto is a widower who raises his small children with the help of sister-in-law Marta, a blind woman, but bitter and Machiavellian, who does everything to keep him from Lívia, because she loves him.
Kira (Xuxa), a botanist who is also the daughter of elves, must fight the evil wicked witch Algaz (Betty Lagp). To fight it, Kira will help Epifania (Deborah Secco), the good witch, elf Daphnis (Thiago Fragoso) and even the Queen Dara (Vera Fisher), the fairy mother.
Porto dos Milagres is a Brazilian telenovela that was produced and aired by TV Globo from 5 February to 29 September 2001, totaling 203 chapters. It was written by Aguinaldo Silva and Ricardo Linhares and loosely based on two works written by Jorge Amado - The Dead Sea and the discovery of America by the Turks. Had Philip collaboration Miguez, Maria Elisa Berredo, Nadotti Nelson and Gloria Baker, directed by Fabricio Mamberti and Luciano Sabino. Director general Mark and Robert Paul Naar, co-directed by Fabricio Mamberti and Luciano Sabino. Had the direction of core Marcos Paulo.
A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of black actors in Brazilian television "soaps". Based on his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyses race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Brazilian African-Americans' identity-forming processes.
Filmed over a five-year period, Chronically Unfeasible dissects Brazilian problems, using six people who meet in a restaurant in São Paulo as models to illustrate political, sociological and economic disparities between Brazil's upper and lower classes.
Nopumoceno, the most successful businessman in the Cabo Verde archipelogo, is an ambitious, clever opportunist, known during his lifetime as "eternity single". However, he is then discovered by his illegitimate daughter to have gotten his fortune and his women in unorthodox and incredible ways
"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 Cat from outer-space comes to earth and befriends a Miller's Son and together they set out to defeat an evil wizard.
Earning her living by dubbing American TV Series, a woman dreams of becoming an international Hollywood star.
Biography of one of the legendary names in the Samba genre of Brazilian music. Although he could hardly dance or play an instrument, he became one of the main composers of Portela, an important Samba "school" in Rio de Janeiro.
Many exotic characters meet in São Paulo night, looking for love and adventure: Malu, a model; Mauro, the drag queen; Teddy, the hustler; Guto, the gay reporter; and Marta, an actress.
Quilombo dos Palmares was a real-life democratic society, created in Brazil in the 17th century. This incredibly elaborate (and surprisingly little-known) film traces the origins of Quilombo, which began as a community of freed slaves. The colony becomes a safe harbor for other outcasts of the world, including Indians and Jews. Ganga Zumba (Toni Tornado) becomes president of Quilombo, the first freely elected leader in the Western Hemisphere. Naturally, the ruling Portuguese want to subjugate Zumba and his followers, but the Quilombians are ready for their would-be oppressors. The end of this Brave New World is not pleasant, but the followers of Zumba and his ideals take to the hills, where they honor his memory to this day. Writer/director Carlos Diegues takes every available opportunity to compare the rise and fall of Quilombo with the state of affairs in modern-day Brazil.
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.
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.
Middle-class family reform their apartment, and the noise, the contact with the workers and strange occurrences turn what was supposed to be a trivial matter into a trip to hell.
The romanced story of Xica da Silva, a slave that used her "feminine atributs" in order to get power.
Having come out recently from jail, a tramp, willing to make quick money, decides to organize a pool match between two famous retired players.
