Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

The rise of MC Sabrina, a young Brazilian funk singer, from her beginnings in Morro dos Prazeres to the electrifying favela parties that pulse through the heart of Rio de Janeiro.

Jesus life and work goes through rumors, conspiracies, injuries, friendship and fanaticism. An emblematic figure of the 1st century, Jesus was a charismatic leader, but he faced many trials.

Brazilian soccer players Sócrates, Casagrande and Vladimir lead a historic movement in sports by adopting a democracy within their team, making a statement against the country's military dictatorship.

The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.

The movie depicts the political crisis that led to the suicide of president Getúlio Vargas, in the 19 days that preceded August 24, 1954. The crisis began with the attempted assassination of journalist and politician Carlos Lacerda in August 5, 1954, at rua Toneleros, Rio de Janeiro, in which Major Vaz was assassinated instead. Investigations pointed to Gregório Fortunato, chief of Vargas' personal guard, as the orderer of the frustrated assassination. This incident was one of the most importants in the history of Brazil.

Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...

The children are invited by a Brazilian music star to one of his shows. But the trip turns into a nightmare when the villains Gonzales and Gonzalito, recently released from prison, decide to kidnap Maria Joaquina.

Comedy in 4 segments. In "Arroz e Feijão" (Rice and Beans), owner of a boarding-house seduces her young countryboy tenant. In "As Três Virgens" (The Three Virgins) three spinsters are influenced by the behaviour of their teenager niece, whom they are lodging. In "O Arremate" (The Purchase) a colonist turns his virgin daughter in to a landowner, to have his debts forgiven. And, finally, in "Vereda Tropical" (Tropical Trail), a man becomes sexually obsessed by a watermelon, to the point of having sexual intercourse with it. The stories are based on prize-winner short stories, from a Playboy contest.

Between August 23 and 31, 1983, at the "Circo Massimo", in Rome, there was a musical event that brought together artists from Bahia. This film brings a recording of the event, also featuring backstage, rehearsals, testimonies and some relaxing moments of these great names in Bahia's music.

A story about a man who hopes to see something extraordinary. Based upon the book of Henry James.

Prostitute is impregnated by a wealthy businessman. Identical twins are born: Márcio created by the father and the mother another. The latter becomes a marginal, while the first, with the death of his father, inherits fortune incalculable. Upon learning of fortune inherited by his brother, the marginal killer, and takes its place in business. Everything goes well until an employee discovers the drama.

On a full moon night, Nicolas prepares himself for an experience that will change his life forever.

An evening in an old time dance hall in Sao Paulo introduces us to local characters who reminisce about the past, wonder about the future, have fun, flirt, fight and, of course, dance. Its earthy humour and eternal themes of ageing, loneliness and desire is an antidote to grumpy old men and women everywhere.

Manuela (Nathalia Dill) is a beach volleyball teacher, determined, objective and self-confident, always ready for fight. She never guided her happiness to a relationship and never planned to get married. But one day, an unexpected encounter takes place and she meets Leo (Marcos Veras), a successful, charismatic, extremely seductive, although very romantic, pediatrician. The two fall in love and start living a life together, but a disagreement cause their separation. During the fights and moments of nostalgia, and with the help of the manipulative Esther (Totia Meirelles), Manuela's mother, they will find out why they are inseparable.

Cláudia, the longest-serving and most respected inmate at Madre Pelletier Penitentiary, is expected to leave prison soon. Like Betânia, who will be placed in a semi-open regime, and unlike Daniela, who recently arrived and is awaiting trial. While Daniela seeks protection in prison, Cláudia and Betânia will face the uncertainties of returning to the streets.

An unwanted guest dictates rules to an average family, who must follow them without questioning and behave in a proper and controlled way.

A Brazilian theatre group that through talent, irony and humour confronted the Brazilian violent dictatorship in the 1970s revolutionising the gay movement worldwide and changing theatre and dance language to an entire generation.

The torrid love affair between a 40-year-old man who lives isolated from the world, in his small farm nearby São Paulo and a politically engaged 30-year-old journalist. One morning, after a night of wild lovemaking, he notices a hole made by sauba ants in his fence. This simple fact raises accusations and discord between the two lovers.

In 1940s São Paulo, Pedro’s tasked to retrieve his estranged brother André. André’s departure stems from a domineering father, an overly affectionate mother, and Pedro’s jealousy over the father’s favoritism. Further complicating matters is André’s unconventional relationship with their sister, Ana.

In 1985, a spy risks everything to stop a conspiracy that threatens to prolong the dictatorship in Brazil. While facing the military, she becomes involved in a forbidden romance with the heiress of a megacorp.

Wandering Heart intimately follows Caetano from São Paulo to New York and Japan, during the release of his first album recorded solely in English. It takes considerably more than a week-long series of shows at Carnegie Hall, accolades in the New York Times, or the admiration of friends like Pedro Almodóvar, David Byrne and Michelangelo Antonioni to make Caetano feel comfortable outside of Brazil.

An older man begins to work in a modern dairy factory. He feels distant and does not identify with the place, the people and even the society. Little by little, he is approaching cows and oxen, transforming into an animal and returning to his ancestry.

The principal character in Helvécio Ratton's delightful film has been adapted from a book and comic created by the Brazilian cartoonist Ziraldo, and tells the tale of a happy-go-lucky 10-year-old child growing up in a city in the 60s.

Nuria, 12, Fabio, 9, and their mother arrive on a small island in the middle of the Amazon, bordering Brazil, Colombia and Peru. They fled the Colombian armed conflict, in which their father disappeared. One day, he mysteriously reappears in their new home.

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.

Inspired by Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver’s book Soul on Ice and dedicated to John Coltrane, Soul in the Eye marks the beginning of Black Brazilian films. The film is a metaphor for the legacy of culture and survival bestowed by enslaved Africans brought to the American continent and the search for freedom through inner transformation, in a game inspired by concretism.

Glória manages to get a divorce and moves away, taking her daughters and the desire to start over. As she tries to turn the new house into a home and her body into a place of belonging, she faces, on the factory floor, a delicate competition for a supervisor position between colleagues and her best friend. Courage takes shape as anguish seeps into the flesh.

Hickson lived off the books, running from one place to another to make a living. His only great achievement in life had been to win over his wife Jéssika, an evangelical hairdresser and his girlfriend since childhood. The two lead a life without great prospects in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro until Hickson gets a job at an evangelical radio station. With luck, talent and the help of Jessica, he soon becomes a pastor and has a meteoric rise in the church. But with fame and money comes envy. What now Hickson?

A symmetrically divided building: on one side, an important public hospital, on the other, a bewildering ruin. On the horizon, Rio de Janeiro, public health, education and Brazil’s aged modern project. Shot entirely in the monumental and only partially occupied modernist edifice of the University Hospital of UFRJ. A material metaphor of the Brazilian public sphere and its political maze. A synthesis architecturally expressed of the modernist utopia/dystopia.

Alice owns a network of sex shops and workaholic who, in trying to reconcile the harsh routine of work and family life, suffers nervous breakdown, she is forced by her husband to go to spa. Precisely at this time, appears unique opportunity to expand its business in New York. Using fun gimmicks, risks his health, leaves spa party there with family to ride, but actually in order to facilitate their professional interests. In trying to reconcile the agendas, engage in hilarious situations and mistakes that culminate in the possible separation of the couple.

A customs agent, Dr. Amnésio, examines some reels of film, a documentary Orson Welles made about Brazil, and tries to confiscate the material. Then, a party in which repression agents celebrate their victory against freedom and creativity.

The film revolves around the fight for territorial control between drug traffickers and police forces and the devastating impact of this war on the lives of people living in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Bored with their marriage, the architect Marcelo proposes his wife Ana, a relation to three, with another sexual partner. The woman accepts, but the situation escapes from Marcelo's control because Ana engages lovingly with each other, and Marcelo no longer fits in the triangle proposed.

If ghosts can think and remember who they are, then the physical brain is not the only place where we store our inner selves. Helen is asked to train two young women into the art of communicating with the dead. But Helen's days as a medium are long gone. In fact, she gave up that life 15 years ago when she lost her daughter. Today Helen is a different woman dedicated to her career in brain research. Things start to change when a visit from the other side offers her the design of a device that can do amazing things. But to everything there is a risk.

Barra da Tijuca, West Side Zone of Rio de Janeiro. A wave of murderers plague the area. What starts off as a morbid curiosity for the local youth, slowly begins to spoil away at their lives. Among them is Bia, a 15-year-old girl. After an encounter with death, she will do anything to make sure she is alive.

Four people with different values and standards meet in the urban chaos of Copacabana. Rita and Waldick come from the country, and befriend two Rio de Janeiro native guys, upon arrival: the playboy and surfer Paulo Roberto and a pimp called Tim.

From childhood to the presidency of Brazil, the documentary follows Jair Bolsonaro’s trajectory, tracing his background, military career, and the path that led to his political rise.

Ura Hee's sexually charged Emmanuelle in Rio tells the tale of an world-famous fashion photographer who is constantly dealing with the romantic advances of a music-video director. Their passions erupt in the exotic city of Rio de Janeiro

Tomás, a birdwatcher and photographer, tries to give his career a push by taking an impossible photograph: an albino bird never seen outside captivity. To this end, he drags his wife and daughter to the Amazonian forest.

The film has Gal's career as its guiding principle, drawing a parallel with the movement of which the singer was the muse and one of the main interpreters, and reaching the present day.

To whom does the poison belongs? to the young lovers? or to their parents, whom in old hands "behold rusted hatred"?

On a Wednesday morning, Suiá, a 19-year-old transgender woman, and Rai, an 18-year-old cisgender woman, embark on the journey of preparing the Amalá ritual. After the ritual, they go home together. As they get home, a passionate kiss triggers insecurities in Rai that shakes Suiá. In the next morning, Rai returns determined to make things right.

The grandfather of a former child star decides to become a superhero. The angst grandson will need to become a superhero's sidekick in order to help his grandfather to face aging with the same bravery that embodies the hero Captain Astúcia.

Two perverted homosexuals stop being gay and become necrophilic and coprophagic killers after one of them cuts his penis off.

In Porto Alegre, the unemployed Ciro has a dull life in a simple apartment with a nameless stray dog that he had found on the streets. Ciro is supported by his parents and works every now and then in translation of Russian. When he meets the aspirant actress Marcela, who dreams on traveling to other places, they immediately fall in love for each other. However, Marcela has a lymphoma and travels for a treatment, and alone Marcelo becomes depressed and returns to his parents home.

Follows the decadence of an incestuous oligarch family in a rural Brazilian household through the years during the early 20th century.

A cockroach's infestation triggers a rift in the relationship between Ingrid and her fiancé. Haunted by terrifying hallucinations, Ingrid spirals into doubt and finds it difficult to distinguish what is real and what is not.

What is a travesti?

Diego, a father struggling to give his daughter Xóchitl a real home, sees his life transformed when the mural she paints opens a portal to Tollan, the realm of the Mexica gods. As Xóchitl is chosen as a possible Sixth Sun, the ambitious Tezcatlipoca plots to claim that power. Separated between worlds, father and daughter must face deception, gods, and their own flaws to reunite. With the help of unexpected allies, they discover that true strength is born from sacrifice, trust, and faith in humanity.

The most successful and famous bank robber in Chilean history. Now, convinced that he has been the victim of other people's mistakes, he decides to return to crime to take revenge for his fate.

To overcome the fear of losing his ill and aging grandfather, a forensic photographer needs to discover the truth behind the alleged suicide of an elderly man.

Zionists hire a hitman to kill a Nazi war criminal exiled in a Latin American country, where he's being protected by the local dictator. Get ready for gunshots; sex scenes; strange form of tortures; a cocaine-addict priest who helps the dictatorship; contemptous remarks and behavior from the main "hero"; amusing sequences of Chuchu having fun with beautiful women pretending to be James Bond; and the wimp colonel who is in love with a male prostitute. It's all good and fun to watch but remember that this is a product of its era, so it's quite possible to see some objectionable things. But for the most part it's never crass or insanely offensive.

Mauro Mateus dos Santos was known by another name: Sabotage. Growing up amidst poverty in São Paulo, the musician, who became a legend after his death, is one of the most important names in national rap.

Gafanhoto is a smuggler who tries to take a hit by stealing a valuable stone. He awakens the fury of the old boss of the gang, and ends up involving in the plot a former colleague, Poeta and his girlfriend Cris, a beautiful woman who brings in the eyes the mark of the tragedy.

Documentary about the traffic of human blood in the Third World.

Mariana lives at the bottom of the sea. One day, her teacher Cecília introduces her to Christian, a prince from another world.

Small-town trickster Pedro Malasartes has to face two great enemies: Próspero, who will do anything to impede such a lazy, cowardly person like Malasartes from dating his sister, Áurea; and Death incarnated, who wants to take a vacation after two thousand years collecting lives and intends on tricking Malasartes into assuming his tedious job.

The special features 22 real testimonials from people like Mandela, Martin Luther King and Marielle Franco, who fought racism and freedom in favor of justice.

The gang got together to watch the funniest stories projected by Franjinha's invention: Go Play Outside, Cebolinha! Mônica in Slow Motion, I Don’t Know the Name of This, But It’s Really Fun!