Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

This film follows scientist Henry Bates as he explores the Amazon for proof of natural selection.

By day, Mari and her friends broadcast their spiritual devotion through pastel pinks and catchy evangelical songs about purity and perfection, and by night they form a vigilante girl gang, prowling the streets in search of sinners who have deviated from the rightful path. After an attack goes wrong, leaving Mari scarred and unemployed, her views of community, religion, and her peers begin to shift.

Chef Jack and his assistant Leonard will travel through the Culinary Islands to participate in the biggest gastronomic competition in the world and, thus, try to defeat their opponents.

A statue steps down from the pedestal and sets out in search of her Creator, the cold Queen of the Night. In the urban night, she encounters mysterious figures that disappear like shadows. Freely inspired by characters from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.

In the campaign that could change her career as fashion influencer, Paula Pratta only needs one essential item: her son. But he trades his business school in California for a permaculture institute in Amazon. With assistant Taylor, she sets off in search of the boy and finds a world without filters and much more than she expected, including the chance to reconsider what really matters in her life.

On a lark in Tijuana, a carefree Brazilian art student crosses paths with a brooding Mexican journalist, sparking a cascade of events across both Mexico and Brazil. As Dolores and Damián discover an intimate love and a mysterious spiritual heritage, they struggle with ever more costly choices.

Cafundó is a 35 mm color film which blends fact with fiction in the life of João de Camargo, a former black slave (1858-1942, Sorocaba, Brazil) who, in his old age, works miracles and devotes himself to assisting others in order to attain his freedom. João de Camargo represents the genesis of religious and cultural syncretism in Brazil.

The film brings Clarice Lispector’s novel Uma Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres to the current days. In the plot, Lóri is a lonely and melancholic woman. She divides her time between her duties as a school teacher and her relationships, which are always fast and shallow. By chance, she meets Ulisses, an acknowledged Philosophy professor, who is self centered and provocative. Although he knows nothing about women, Lóri learns with him how to love and to face her own loneliness.

Between scenes from his concert in São Paulo's oft-inaccessible Theatro Municipal, rapper and activist Emicida celebrates the rich legacy of Black Brazilian culture.

Reunited for their mother’s funeral, four sisters – Selma, Regina, Laura and Lúcia – find themselves forced to divide much more than an apartment in Copacabana. While dividing the articles, the sisters compare options, destinies, lifestyles, and expectations. The turbulent sale of the apartment represents a turning point in their lives: they know they have never been so deeply involved as accomplices, or as sisters.

Malu — a mercurial, unemployed actress living with her conservative mother in a precarious house in a Rio de Janeiro slum — tries to deal with her strained relationship with her own adult daughter while surviving on memories of her glorious artistic past.

Virgílio’s quiet, predictable life unravels with one message: a breakup from a woman he doesn’t remember. As he searches for her, he’s swept into a journey of memory, longing, and the unexpected chance to find the love of his life.

The story of a civil servant who lives with his elderly mother. Falling in love with a corrupt politician's young and rich daughter, he abandons himself to crazy and violent situations.

One night seven years ago, Rafael came home after work and discovered that people he did not know had come looking for him. He immediately fled, without looking back. From that moment on, his life changed, as if that night had never ended. One evening, around an improvised fire near a factory, he decides to confide his journey to a stranger. Rafael’s intimate account meets the collective testimony of an entire nation oppressed by poverty, police repression and institutional corruption.

Orson Welles goes to Brazil to shoot his documentary It's All True.

Set against the turbulent atmosphere of the 1960s, Tropicália is a feature length documentary exploring the Brazilian artistic movement known as Tropicália, and the struggle its artists endured to protect their right to freely express revolutionary thought against the traditional Brazilian music of that time.

Suely, an Indigenous woman living in a large Brazilian city, spends her days in a small apartment. In her dreams, she communicates with a forest and connects to secrets of a world undergoing radical changes.

A short film omnibus featuring the work of five directors representing five countries involved in the 2017 BRICS summit, an annual international relations conference held between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The collection—taking the concept of time as a unifying theme—depicts the economic, political, and social alienations and contradictions that create, compound, and structure issues as wide-ranging as poverty, class stratification, and homeless; familial distress; spousal abuse; and natural disaster.

The DVD was recorded in Rio de Janeiro, at HSBC Arena on June 13, 2015. Directed by Anselmo Troncoso, with musical production by Ruben di Souza. The CD/DVD repertoire consists of songs from the albums "Extraordinário Amor de Deus" (2011) and "Graça" (2013), both awarded with the Latin Grammy as the best albums of Christian music in Portuguese. The show had the participation of Fernandinho and Bruna Karla in the song "Rendido Estou".

Regina and Valerio are a happy couple seeking a way out of their criminal family business, but their efforts only push them deeper into the pit they hoped to escape.

In four stories inspired by humorous tales by Ariano Suassuna, each created based on phrases by the poet from Paraíba, we meet Helder, Fabiano, Pierce and Lorena, living different situations where, ironically, the lie is always the protagonist.

How a bad company can ruin a teenager?

Two years after leaving prison, Cadu sets out to fight corruption and pursue a political career, but dangerous ties to the past haunt him.

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.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil as you have never seen it before. Relive the emotions of the players, the goals, the misses, the heartbreak, the joy. In addition to re-living the action on the pitch, enjoy the journey from the bustling city of São Paolo to the indigenous tribes of the Amazon, as Neymar, Messi, Rodriguez and Müller strive towards FIFA World Cup glory. Also known as “Road to Maracanã."

After losing her job, an unstable woman sinks further and further into a violent fantasy world.

Sofia goes to her cousin Matheus's house to take care of his two children, Júlia and Lucas, while he goes to a party. She finds a magical book, which transports them to the Magic Forest, where they meet fairytale characters such as Pinocchio and Little Red Riding Hood. But their presence starts interfering with the original stories, and so Matheus tries to bring them back to the real world.

A dental hygienist is seduced by a mysterious mermaid into the dark and wet underworld of Florida’s exotic animal trade.

Sequel to the award-winning 2007 film, Stomach 2 tells the tasty and bloody dispute between a faction leader and an Italian boss for control of the prison where they are held and the privilege of being served by the talented cook Raimundo Nonato

In an empty city, scorched by the sun, the young and old confuse the fever of sunstroke with the delicate birth of passion. Like ghosts, they hover around buildings and endless flatlands in search of the ever elusive love. Inspired by 19th century Russian short stories, the plots weave and unravel together in the improbable city of Brasilia – a distorted mirror-image of the Soviet utopia – located in the heart of the Brazilian desert.

Three young friends, Tita, Mari and Aninha decide to change their situations and travel to a beach place for a weekend. On the road, they meet Estrella, a hippie that wants a hide to try to find her unknown father. Together, they will live hilarious, absurd and moving situations. More than a change the air, they change themselves.

With executive production by Fernando Meirelles and direction by Fred Luz, actors Alexandre Rodrigues and Edson Oliveira are Buscapé and Barbantinho, two friends who meet again in today's City of God: bigger, more diverse and connected.

A man is abandoned by his wife and then falls in love with his neighbor, the perfect, ideal woman. The only problem: she doesn't exist!

Rubens is a carefree, charismatic swimming instructor who finds himself accused of displaying inappropriate affection toward one of his students by the boy's mother. Other parents and colleagues are only too eager to condemn him.

The film tells the story of Arnaldo, that to get rid of his miserable life, seeks of a clinic that promises to copy people. With a copy occupying his place, he would take a new life. But, when having his request denied, Arnaldo has no choice but to try and change the course of his history. When he falls in love with Josie, the clerk of a pet cemetery, Arnaldo believes that he found a chance to finally be happy. But maybe he's wrong. A Lone Man is an urban fable that addresses the complexity of relationships, with a good dose of irony, and humor.

Nico is a famous actor in Argentina, but in New York, nobody takes notice. He needs to juggle bartending, babysitting and odd jobs to keep himself afloat. But when old friends from Buenos Aires come to visit, he needs to juggle the image of his old life with the reality of the struggling actor in New York City.

Eva is a beautiful model who’s hired to star in a campaign to sell a marvelous new product: the male contraceptive pill. But it isn't easy to win the confidence of its target market, since they believe it causes impotence.

José Costa is a Brazilian ghost writer. Returning from a ghost writers convention his airplane is rerouted to Budapest. His life is also rerouted when he meets Krista and with her help, learns "the only language in the world which, according to the tongue-wagers, the devil respects.

The feature film that brings together 12 shorts by youngsters of the suburbs of São Paulo, addressing issues such as the lack of work perspective, racism, right to housing and homophobia.

Aluízio Li is a martial arts fan who lives with his head in the world of fights from dreaming and watching Chinese films. He believes he is a Shaolin monk, dressing and behaving just like his cinematic references. However, he is the subject of mocking jokes in his hometown, Quixadá, in the backlands of Ceará. His days of peace will end when retired MMA fighter Toni Tora Pleura announces a "tour" of challenges to bullies in several cities in the interior of Ceará, including Quixadá.

A powerful entrepreneur wants to build an exclusive resort hotel in Villanova, but he discovers the location he has in mind is protected by local land-use regulations. He hires Maria, a beautiful and elegant prostitute, to seduce the mayor, leaving him open to blackmail if he won't give the entrepreneur what he wants. Maria has no trouble twisting Meireles around her finger, but police detectives Madeira and Neves get wind of the plan and set out to expose the plot...

The journey of Gabriel and Daniel, two brothers cursed by the Chinese mafia with its feared Three Generations Revenge, who have already reaped the life of their grandfather and their father. To survive, one of the brothers must learn the Smoke Style secrets, a little known Cannabis martial art, taught by a single master, high up in the mountains.

In Rio de Janeiro, Noah Silva is a smooth-talking, used-car salesman whose 'do whatever it takes' approach to business and life begins to unravel at home and at work. After a series of wake-up calls, Noah is forced to confront the cost of his choices. He begins a difficult and deeply personal journey to restore his integrity while trying to win back the hearts of his wife and son.

Born with a silver spoon, Jonathan Shaw chose, at the height of his career as a tattoo artist, to give up on his celebrity lifestyle in order to escape from his own vicious cycle.

A group of friends working on an offshore oil rig maintain close bounds and do their best to face the difficulties presented by living and working isolated out in the middle of the sea. A job promotion triggers events that disrupt, in an irreversible way, the group friendship and the protagonist’s own life on land. He is tested by the force of destiny and experiences the drama of an ordinary man facing a gradual process of isolation.

The true story of Assis Chateaubriand, the first magnate of communications in Brazil. Due to his influence during the late 1930s up to the early 1960s, he has come to be called 'the Brazilian Citizen Kane'.

In a therapy session, secrets emerge, turning the encounter between Ágatha and her psychiatrist into a dangerous psychological game.

The tomboyish, outgoing Julieta is the daughter of a member of the Palmeiras soccer club board. She is constantly frustrated by what she sees as institutional bias against women in soccer. One day while watching her beloved Palmeiras, she is struck by a handsome man, Romeu, that she sees rooting for the Palmeiras' chief rivals, the Corinthians. After meeting the same man again in the middle of eye exam, Julieta and Romeu quickly become a couple. However, in order to avoid incurring the wrath of her parents, Romeu is forced to pretend to be an adoring Palmeiras fan, an increasingly difficult task for the die-hard Corinthiano.

Gloria, a 10-year-old girl, is spending her vacation in the hospital with her mother, a working-hard nurse. While exploring the facility, Gloria meets Sofia, a girl convinced that her great-grandmother’s worsening health is a result of her hospital admission. Bonding over their shared desire to leave, the two girls find solace in each other’s company. As departure becomes inevitable, the girls and their mothers head to a countryside retreat to spend the final days of an unforgettable summer.

Yuri, Lili and Matt get ready for a very special day. But their dreams go down the drain when they discover that the parents have changed their plans and are now going to the same summer camp together, with several children they have seen.

A group of scoundrels want to make it by planning hoaxes.

The historical, political, and social context of Brazil in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and the impact of each decade on the life and work of the acclaimed actress Marília Pêra.

Inspired by the moving book “Só as Mães São Felizes”, by Lucinha Araújo, Cazuza's mother, the film covers a little more than 10 years of the singer’s crazy and brief life – from the beginning of his career in the Circo Voador venue, in 1981, to the huge success and the apotheosis of his shows with the Barão Vermelho band, his solo career, his relations with his parents, friends, lovers and passions, and the courage he had to face his final years, with HIV, until his death, in 1990.

During a time of political upheaval in Brazil, two strangers meet by coincidence in a foreign land and end up caught in the middle of a gem smuggling ring.

1950s. An escape. A new family. Through VHS footage and rescued letters, a grandmother's past is revealed.

Diagnosed with leukemia, a vibrant, soccer-loving teenager enters the hospital, where she finds purpose in friendship and her example influences others.

After being fired from his job and have his unemployment insurance money robbed, a young man decides to become a robber himself. While escaping authorities, he meets a female teacher of whom he takes hostage. Things get complicated when they fall in love with each other.