Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

Jessica has little time to be a mother. It is on public transport - on the way between Nova Iguaçu and the South Zone of Rio - that she spends most of her time with her son Zeca. Young and black, Jéssica is always in a hurry: in addition to being a single mother, she is also a university student and intern at an advertising agency. Nothing comes easy for her. A former public school student, Zeca now has a scholarship to an elite school in Gávea, but he is no longer the happy, communicative child he once was.

A couple obsessed by fireworks discovers the great Super Silver Star.

A voyeuristic hunt during a trip to Rio de Janeiro with lots of sea, sun, sweat and personal encounters. Brazilian men care about their physique and they freely allow admiration of their sculpted bodies. The sensuality of those men creates blurry sexual identities. An outdoors gym in the Arpoador area unveiled to me the vibrancy of the country and the diversity of men.

Mr. Godoy teaches math at a Private High School's senior year. Stubborn and severe, Godoy lives a dull life defined by rules, but something is about to change.

A young anthropologist reflects on her late grandmother's religious background.

Habito tells the story of a poor, fat black man in pursuit of his dream of being a filmmaker, facing academic and personal challenges after his mother is diagnosed with breast cancer. A narrative that intertwines life, family and cinema, exploring the roots of Alagoas and Bahia.

Triggered by congressman Jair Bolsonaro’s homage to the torturer Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra, during president Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment hearing in 2016, Inês, a 70 year-old actress, starts a fragmented narrative of her own history, transforming the memories of her youth as an artist and guerrilla fighter during the military dictatorship into performances. Using as a starting point her participation in Teatro Oficina's 1967 production of the play "King of The Candle", by Oswald de Andrade, Inês creates a manifesto in defense of art's political strength, intertwined with memories of lost love and resistance.

Seven friends, a remote forest, and a short film that should never have been made. What begins as a simple independent production turns into a bloody nightmare when one of them disappears and strange events begin to follow the script — literally. Amid brutal deaths, unexpected betrayals, and a killer who seems to know too much, the line between fiction and reality blurs. In the end, only one will survive to witness the final cut.

Sandra returns to her cousin Mariana’s house in search of a photo of her late mother, who worked as a live-in maid for Mariana’s parents. Although they were raised together, Sandra, a dark-skinned Black woman, and Mariana, a light-skinned Black woman, experienced that house in vastly different ways. Their reunion forces them to confront long buried memories, issues of race, family, and belonging, while a supernatural force lurks around them.

After the loss of his mother, a boy uses his imagination to escape reality, creating and playing characters. As a result, despite their grief, his family needs to do everything they can to deal with the boy's fantasies.

Denise, Dilma and Teresinha are three women with visual impairment who live in Teresina. Each one with a type of impairment, they share their experiences, challenges and hopes as women who feel the world beyond what their eyes can see.

The Brazilian police go on strike and so the crime takes over the city. People have to do everything to survive this day of crimes without laws. It'a "Brazilian Purge", based on true events.

A convertible car enters the city of São Paulo bringing two people aboard. They ride 24 hours unfolding the views of a big city.

Silvia, whose lover is a talking horse, is threatened by Scipio, her uncle and tutor, and by Marcus and Furius, advisers to the monarch, who aim to overthrow the daughter of the former Roman emperor. Scipio, as a strategy, wants to marry her to Marcus, but she refuses. The advisers, on the other hand, are simultaneously planning a coup against Scipio.

Marcelino, a country bumpkin, comes from the countryside to try his luck in Rio de Janeiro. His uncle Simão, a taxi driver and resident of a favela with Sofia, comes to greet him at the train station. A neighbor, Tereza, takes an interest in the newcomer. At the pier, the criminal Zé receives a package and is pursued by police. Mira Diler performs at the Caverna nightclub. In her dressing room, the criminal Zé is found, injured and without the package. Valentino complains about the police action that is disrupting his "business." Marcelino still hasn't found work; at the same time, he tries unsuccessfully to sell his compositions. He begins helping his uncle as a driver, but puts his own worries first: he goes to the nightclub looking for Mira, but finds himself caught up in Valentino's schemes.

Film version of the 2017 miniseries. After discovering the elixir of youth a scientist reunites with her high school sweetheart, bringing back many dilemmas from the past. She tests the formula on herself and each dose makes her 30 years younger. She then starts switching between her current persona and the younger one, becoming her own rival. Meanwhile, her former boyfriend falls in love with both versions of the scientist, unaware this love triangle includes both identities of the same woman.

In a quilombo in the backlands of Ceará, Dulce witnesses the murder of her partner, Davi, carried out by gunmen on the orders of a foreign mining company. Threatened, Dulce goes to São Paulo, where she gives voice to the crime that occurred and denounces the involvement of the multinational, with the support of NGOs and lawyers. Orphaned and raised on a mission by sisters, Dulce is sought out in São Paulo by Beatriz, who reveals herself to be her mother. Abandoned as a baby, she also discovers that she has a twin brother, now her sister Marisa, who owns a karaoke bar with a "refuge" spirit, which brings together an LGBTIQ+ audience, a completely new universe for Dulce. Dulce and Marisa demand that Beatriz reveal something about their unknown father and now set off together, back to the backlands, with two missions: to celebrate the victory of the quilombo and to find the father who never knew of his daughters' existence.

A 70-year-old queer man who is losing his memory needs you to help keeping some of his most intimate and contradictory remembrances from a public bathroom in his past, where he had experiences of danger, pleasure, and shame.

At the countryside town of Piratini, in the far south of Brazil, an elderly couple has a life filled with everyday activities. In the midst of an ordinary day, they recall the past, their roots, those who are gone and their connection to the southern countryside, in wich they have lived their entire lives.

Brazil, 2022. Luiza is a veterinarian whose life is torn apart after a global data leak exposes private user content from major social networks. A reflection on technology, friendship and solitude.

Considering the research of the Brazilian Forum of Public Security (2017), Black people in Brazil are still more than half of the population of the country. Between 2005 and 2015 the number of black people murdered increased by 18% and this also made us the majority of homicide victims, accounting for 71% of all registered bodies. 'Jah Intervention' is a symbolic walk to exhaustion. The intervention proposes the preliminary warm-up that precedes a fight of titans in a boxing ring. The intervention consists of the movement of the performer sensing the sudden fall when affected by perforations by bullets of semi-automatic weapons.

For thirty years, Carlos Escayola was the main politician of the small town of Tacuarembó, Uruguay. This farmer was known both for his political and cultural achievements (including the construction of a theater), and for the reputation of seducer, which earned him one of the greatest family polemics in the history of the region.

Edited scenes with pop Brazilian singer and composer Gilberto Gil, trying to conclude a train of thought, but never finishing a sentence.

The sunlight illuminates a couple in bed. During the day, the house loses its cozy air and turns into a temple. She changes from lover to priestess. He transforms his embarrassment into a confession.

The film accompanies the investigation of the historian Sidney Aguilar after the discovery of bricks marked with Nazi swastikas in the interior of São Paulo. They then discover a horrifying fact that during the 1930s, fifty black and mullato boys were taken from an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro to the farm where the bricks were found. There they were identified by numbers and were submitted to slave labour by a family that was part of the political and economic elite of the country and who did not hide their Nazi sympathizing ideals.

May our smiles not be forced for your enjoyment and may our pains no longer be hidden. May my mother Yemanja help me. A short film about the pain we carry alone and that we only confess to the sea, which is life, but for us, black people from the diaspora, it's also a memory of a past of sadness and death.

A parody of the story The Three Musketeers.

Paola and Ziel grew up in the Karapotó indigenous territory, in the interior of the Brazilian state of Alagoas, but in their youth they ended up following different ways. The film is a reunion in the city of Recife, in a ritual of healing and affection, reviving bonds of friendship

The film is close to the experiences of men and women forced to survive on the streets of São Paulo in the early 1990s, a time of deteriorating living conditions for workers, high unemployment and increasing urban poverty. Between approaching the problem as something structural and a sensitive look at the characters, the documentary portrays the lives of people who lost their work, distanced themselves from their affections and saw their identity disintegrate.

Cecília is in love with her neighbor Ana, but Ana is trying to seduce Alberto. She ignores that he is about to commit suicide. In a day full of surprises, the three neighbors share the same experience: love.

In a reality where movement is always necessary, Ytalo, as he heads to work for another day, realizes that his world is different.

Discover the history of the Chic Show ball, an iconic black music party in São Paulo. The event was a milestone in the life of São Paulo. Held in halls across the city in the 1970s and 1980s, the show became a meeting point for black culture and opened up space for funk, soul, rap and pagode, among other rhythms. The party welcomed names such as Tim Maia, Sandra de Sá, Gilberto Gil, Djavan, Bebeto and Carlos Dafé, as well as international artists such as Kurtis Blow, Betty Wright and James Brown.

Every Shadow Seems Alive

After missing out on his co-workers winning lottery pool, the lonely Jairo embarks on an extraordinary Christmas adventure as a helper to none other than Santa Claus himself.

Didi, Dedé, Mussum and Zacarias are sent in a rescue mission to the daughter of the Army's minister.

Live concert that showcases the Brazilian singer Marisa Monte's exceptional talent and charisma. Recorded during her acclaimed 2001 tour, the DVD captures Monte's dynamic stage presence and her ability to blend various musical styles, including samba, MPB (Música Popular Brasileira), and pop.

Take a Break is a short film highlighting the urgency of pausing and breathing amidst life's pressures. It captures the essence of finding tranquillity in chaos, emphasizing the importance of mental well-being.

On her first day of school, Sofia – a Brazilian teenager who has recently arrived in London – is bullied by a group of British students. Homesick and alienated from the world around her, she meets Lauren, a British-Nigerian teenager who shows her Sun Rah, a world entirely of her own making in a nearby park, where they make their home together.

During a world calamity, a young couple disagrees on how to deal with the situation after a controversial statement made by the president.

Ernesto, a seventy-eight-year-old Uruguayan photographer living in Brazil, faces the limitations of old age. One day, Bia storms into his life. And Ernesto realizes that aging can be about rejuvenating with the company of a girl.

Documentary about the Portuguese language, and people who speak it around the world.