Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

In 2040, at the abandoned Messejana Lake, a pair of egrets struggles to find a safe place to nest and protect their eggs as a large-scale construction project brings workers and heavy machinery dangerously close.

At a movie screening, two women meet. But the film has ended, and what remains now is what was never written into the script: the truth between them.

Renilson: Life and Carnival" is a documentary that tells the story of one of the greatest cultural figures in the city of Acari, in Rio Grande do Norte. In the 1980s and 1990s, he had a major impact on the carnivals and performances of this small inland city, working in a community-focused way alongside friends and local people, with a strong sense of plurality and diversity.

Anderson is a man torn between love and hatred, as he grapples with moral and emotional dilemmas rooted in his past. As he descends into a journey of vengeance and redemption, he is compelled to confront the darkest corners of his own soul.

In a time marked by longing and uncertainty, at the beginning of a social isolation, two friends disappear. The pandemic becomes a backdrop for the loss of innocence and the rescue of long-lost things. Ingenuous is like a farewell gift from the only link that united these two missing figures; two strangers who get lost, or maybe, just maybe, just met.

A literary adaptation by Ivan Cardoso

Mario and his father live isolated in a small place in Brazi's countryside.

The Loneliness of Marcela, a 14-year-old girl who decides to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

The story of the University of Brasília, since it was only a project in Darcy Ribeiro's head until the fateful events in August 1968 when its campus was invaded by the police, during the military dictatorship, thus putting an end to its independence.

A Lebanese photographer living in Brazil in the '30s manages to film the band of Lampião, a legendary Brazilian bandit.

Pedex was tasked with protecting the Shadow Realm after Amelia's death as a way of honoring her legacy. When Pedex senses an unnatural presence, he discovers it is Volcanic, the Fire Demon. Seeing this as an invasion, Pedex confronts him, and the two engage in a violent battle between Fire and Darkness. The conflict extends beyond the Shadow Realm and extends to the small fictional town of Oldwood, where the fighting becomes even more intense and destructive.

A special police team is ready for anything - or almost anything.

Fictional Documentary. A dancer in one of the paintings by Edgar Degas one day stepped out of the canvas, conquers the world and disappears during the carnival in Rio; mix of the academic universe, avant-gard art and the underworld sex scene. The movie was shot in Paris, NY and RJ.

A hybrid feature film that investigates contemporaneity through the body and its countless possibilities of expression and meanings. The film puts the body and the idea of the body in evidence, through metalanguage, articulation and confrontation of documentary, fictional and performative languages. The film follows the trajectory of the main character who uses her own body to formulate universes and investigate the meanings that are drawn in it. In a kind of subjective diary written on her skin, she records sensations and reflections, building relationships with thinkers, performances and archival materials, which lead her to other bodies and other stories.

A chronicle of a bloody war that pitted the inhabitants of the hamlet of Canudos, led by their prophet, against the army of the young Brazilian Republic in 1897.

Cacareco is a clumsy worker at a dry cleaners who constantly causes losses for his boss, the Portuguese Rebuçado. One day, he receives a package from his relatives in the north: Maria do Socorro, his goddaughter. Pursuing his dream of working in television, Socorro ends up involving Cacareco in numerous disputes, including fights, robberies, and gambling in an underground casino.

Roberto Pontes, a private detective, is hired to prove a case of infidelity in a distant town. But on his way back to his office in the dead of night, he stops at a roadside hotel for the night, where a far more haunting mystery awaits him.

A couple argues. She doesn't know what he hides.

The film reveals the creation of poet Dorival Caymmi's musical works with testimonies from researchers, journalists and friends who lived with him and were able to enjoy his wisdom and talent.

During the quarantine promoted by the Coronavirus, hundreds of videos posted on Darwin's personal Instagram become a biased diary of our time, of the last 10 years and, at the same time, a deep dive into his being, a dive for those who see and for those who made, an experience of discovery, resistance and contemplation, for both sides.

Follows four women of the estimated 40,000 displaced people moved from the banks of the Xingu River in the Amazon Basin to make space for construction of one of the world's largest dams, the Belo Monte.

In 1959, disgraced intergalactic agent WA4 receives a mission: to come to the Earth and kill the president Juscelino Kubitschek on the day of Brasília's inauguration. But his ship is lost in time and lands in 2016 in Ceilândia — a Black suburb of Brasilia — on the verge of Dilma Rousseff's impeachment.

After appearing almost unrecognizable—significantly thinner—in the Christmas episode of Sai de Baixo, where he played Santa Claus, Milton faced criticism about his weight loss, which even sparked media rumors that he might have HIV. He decided to step away for a while and focus on creating his next work, Nascimento. To promote the album, he developed a tour with Gabriel Villela. With sets designed by Villela and Milton himself directing, the show symbolized the singer’s own rebirth. Dancers who also played percussion surrounded him onstage, performing around a giant drum at the center—an altar-like platform where Milton remained throughout the performance.

The mother is dying, the father has never cared. The two sisters Ana and Ju, however, remain strong and in solidarity with each other - even if the world around them collapses and asteroids fall from the sky.

The life and work of Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) are portrayed in this documentary. The film presents his ideas and memories in a succession of sensory landscapes on the painter, sculptor and landscaper’s trajectory: Burle Marx projected squares and gardens in cities like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Recife —most of them is marked by native plants of Brazil, that, together, make up wavy shapes.

Katia Tapety became the first trans woman elected as a politician in Brazil - councilwoman for three times and one time for vice-mayor. This film is the result of a 20-day-living period with her in her small town testifyng some of her experience and the impressions of those around her.

Pedro is a teenager who sells drinks in the traffic on a highway that brings thousands of people to the coast during the summer. Driven by curiosity and desire, he embarks on an adventure that transforms him profoundly.

In a monotone and a long-walk routine, Heitor is headed to another work day, until something begins to follow him

Empire of Brazil, 1870. A queer indigenous body slowly dies on the cross while a transgender gypsy woman is banned by her people. A half-breed soldier stands in the middle of the way. A child and an old woman cross their stories like destined lines on the palm of a hand.

Jaiane now lives in Brazil, while Aissa, a Mozambican sailor who has just arrived in the city, tries to have a real experience on dry land. A story of unconventional passion follows.

Karen sings and plays the trumpet in a vigorous rock band in Brasilia, but no one there is interested in it. At 27, she has lost hope in the city her grandfather helped to build. She follows in the footsteps of her ex-partner in the band, Artur, and tries her luck in Berlin.

Eduardo discovers he has a split personality: a buttoned-up São Paulo executive and beach-loving weekend playboy in Rio de Janeiro called Duca. Unconsciously, he becomes entangled with a woman although he's already engaged to another.

Anonymous figures pass through the gates of a park at night, seeking adventure in its dark alleys. An amusement park is ruled by the laws of desire.

Raised as Catholics by the Queen of Portugal, the orphans Leonor, Brites, and Mécia are sent to the Brazilian colony with the order to get married. The harsh adaptation to the precariousness of the New World is felt differently by each of them.

Here lives happiness-here lives happiness, say old recordings found in the phalluses in the areas of prostitution in Pompeii. A tale of sexuality in colonialism. Mathias, a European traveler, passes through a coastal town below the equator and implodes the routine of those he encounters. In his own words: “their skin tone attracts me like an abyss.”

Joao is a 50 year old actor who lives with his 72 year old mother, Celina. He spends his time between his work at night as a crossdresser in small gay bars and his parts in small plays, movies and TV shows. Tormented and haunted by ghosts from his past, day after day Joao starts to merge the reality in which he lived with the fiction he is interpreting.

A recently unemployed young woman accepts a job as a waitress at a high-class private party. At the event, she faces numerous situations that take her night in unexpected turns.

Two young black friends from the same hood thrive a future as artists, but everything changes when the COVID-19 pandemic becomes a global issue and art can no longer be the main source of their income. Even thought, each in their own way, they strugle to continue with their artistic goals, besides the government and the circumstances conspiring against their ambitions.

Documentary about the man who is currently considered the father of violation of human rights inquests, Roger Casement (1864-1916). The actions during the time he spent in Africa, Brazil and in his native Ireland still echo in our days.

Between 1974 and 1976, while researching for his filme "S. Bernardo", Leon Hirszman shot three documentary shorts produced by the Brazilian Ministry of Education on the chores of the men who worked in the sugar cane fields in the town of Feira de Santana, in the cocoa fields of Itabuna, and in the efforts of building households in Chã Preta.

The reunion of a writer and his ex-lover. For three days, the two live a true sexual marathon, which ends with an unimaginable surprise for him. Adaptation of the work by Rubem Fonseca.

In a future where women were replaced by androids, Karen (Natalie Fronczak), a robot-wife, is living a crisis in her relationship with Francis (William Barbier), a violent husband. Based in the Laws of Robotics, she asks for a divorce.

Documentary discussing the life and work of José Lewgoy, one of the most important Brazilian actors of all times.

After her husband's death, Helena tries to move on with her life in the silence of her apartment. But grief brings company...