Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

In 1977, acclaimed filmmaker Maria Clara Lacerda won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with Absence, a hauntingly personal film inspired by her passionate relationship with journalist Pedro Ferraz. Years later, following a long separation, Maria Clara returns to Brazil and agrees to an interview with Pedro—an encounter that would go down in history. Now, decades on, previously unseen footage of the moments leading up to that fateful conversation resurfaces. Through restored images, the film uncovers a raw, intimate perspective of that day, revealing long-buried truths, silences, and emotions lost to time.

The doorbell at the bridal shop rings.

At a time when the world is discussing the impact of human actions on the environment, Amazônia Eterna presents a critical analysis of how the world's largest tropical rainforest is understood and appreciated.

A countdown begins as dark sands of an hourglass fall. Two men in separate, dimly lit rooms are haunted by disturbing visions. A mysterious creature will soon join them.

In an antique shop in downtown São Paulo, a love story from the past is revealed amid the daily life of the place.

The documentary explores the voluntary teaching of music to young people from the periphery, highlighting the impact of education as resistance in the lives of socially vulnerable individuals in the Brazillian midwest.

Documentary that explores the harsh reality of childhood marriages in Brazil, which mostly affect girls.

Boris has done everything in life. He is even the best actor in the world.

The documentary tells the story of Júlio César, a young Afro-Brazilian who was executed by the Police in the 1980s in Porto Alegre. The crime became notorious when the press published photos of Julius being put alive in the police car and arriving 37 minutes later shot and dead at the hospital.

A tribute to Paulo Autran with historical interviews and archive material from the actor, including previously unpublished testimonies from artists who worked with him.

Lorenzo has been in love with his best friend, Beatriz, since they were kids. Beatriz is the editor of the college newspaper and runs the news around campus. However, one day, Lorenzo's secret is exposed by his younger brother in the "Confessions" section of the newspaper, triggering a series of events that lead to a conflict between them. When they are confronted face to face, truths are revealed, and their friendship changes forever.

Hugo is trying to remember what important thing he had going on that day, but his mind is busy with music and daydreams about looking at someone's eyes.

Carmen lives her last day of freedom before her husband leaves prison.

It is another rainy day in Pyongyang and the long boulevards of utilitarian buildings have taken on a misty shade of grey. School children do daily exercises before saluting a portrait of Kim Jong-un and adults don lapel pins depicting their leader before a day’s work at the farm or factory. Tracing a form of cultural uniformity that is unfamiliar to many in the West, this is a portrait of life behind the world’s last iron curtain.

A cigarette factory decides to launch a new brand of cigarettes on the market, the Relax 3000. A team of publicists takes action. Thousands of dollars involved, thousands of meetings, thousands of scoldings and a smell of shit in the air.

One of the greatest pests on the planet, the evil ants destroy the forest to protect their family. Memories of the covid-19 pandemic, eroded by ignorance and negationism. What's left in this great country of worms and viruses?

Lucas returns to his parents house to celebrate his father's sixteenth birthday. When confronted with the conservative and bourgeois world from which he had escaped, Lucas realizes that he can no longer hide behind his old mask and decides to express what he really thinks.

A few days after his grandfather's death, young Igor decides to make a documentary about the history of his family in an attempt to understand why his grandfather, Guilhermino, was obsessed with strange facts that had happened in his city. Thus, in 1990, in the interior of the state Rio Grande do Sul, Igor and his father Nilson interview relatives, friends and people involved in the case in an attempt to undo the bad name of his grandfather, but what they find out is a part of the story of the state, unraveling mysteries related to extraterrestrials, failed space programs and a muddled mission of the Cold War.

Trash rottenness in the love adventures of a coprophagous mongoloid, revealing the behavior of men and their relationships with humanity, in a satire of the common citizen.

Unable to endure the idea that he would go without punishment, a criminal's victim chases him the length and breadth of Brazil for a showdown.

In 1987, Brazil was goin through a serious economic crisis. In this context, the Brazilian Football Confederation announces that it doesn’t have the resources to finance that year's Championship. The main clubs in the country then decide to organize an independent competition. It was the beginning of a war that still echoes today.

The freedom of free thought in a visual discourse that blends art with science, biography with transcendence, and geography with destiny. Inspired by the legacy of physicist Mario Schenberg.

Set against the backdrop of mysterious abductions across Brazil, mother and son, Marta and Levi, struggle with affection and grief when one of their loved ones, Diná, a young trans woman, becomes one of the victims.

An adaptation of the author's children's book of the same name. It is the story of a studious and loving girl who lives in harmony with her family, but refuses to eat and loses so much weight that she is carried away by a balloon... The short film reflects on good eating habits for children, something extremely important in an age of fast food and sweets. Thus, young audiences will follow the love of a family, but also the consequences of disobedience and all the conflicts that arise from it, faced by the protagonist.

In this short film the director reflects on the feeling of being on the wrong path in your life, that you have no control over your own life. But coming to the conclusion, it's life, we all go through it, and without these moments of fall we don't learn to live.

Daisy, a young bumpkin, dates Deltan, a christian. Richard, her punk former boyfriend, doesn't like that and proposes a modern solution: a polygamous relationship.

People from different areas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, try to answer the following question: for you, what is it like to live in the Marvelous City?

Online horniness in the age of the ballardian flesh supercomputer

This short was one of the first directions / scripts made by director Petter Baiestorf. In the short, EB Toniolli plays a desperate young man who attempts the longest suicide ever shot in the history of cinema. It was recorded in 1992, but edited in 1996.

In the future, when everybody is going to wear fancy clothing and make-up, and be aggressive as a form of survival, two rival punk gangs fight for the same territory. Action takes place mostly during the nights, and people gather in groups usually having some big name as leader, such as punk singers. After groups are formed, they start fighting against each other, trying to secure leadership. Main groups are the Lady's, the Baby's, the Drago's and the Ratos (Rats). They mix sex with violence, sometimes with subsequent death. One of the few dissonant voices is Gatão (Big Cat), kind of barbarian super-hero who faces punk tribes alone, standing for old-fashioned values such as honor, honesty, loyalty and care for defenceless people. Kind of "The Warriors" (1979) wannabe.

Entering the virtual world of “Second Life”, Brazilian visual artist Paulo Bruscky meets film director Gabriel Mascaro. Mascaro, an ex-film film director from north-east Brazil currently lives and works making machinima (virtual short films) in the “Second Life”. Paulo hires Gabriel to make a machinima documentary of his adventures as a newcomer to the “Second Life”.

A young couple, Pedro and Antônia, have their relationship weakening after meeting Luana. Romance, seduction, fear and anguish from the future are established in this story of liquid love.

Two young farmers are visited by a stranger who wants to spend the night.

A woman leaves her apartment to go pick up a newspaper, opening and closing a multiple of locks on her way out and back.

Curt Nimuendajú is a German ethnologist who lived in Brazil from 1903 until his death. In addition to having studied and defended the rights of about 50 indigenous peoples, he lived as one of them in each tribe. Nimuendajú died in 1945, in the Amazon, under unknown circumstances.