Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

Six people's lives come together.

Fernanda Paes Leme (herself), a famous actress and TV personality in Brazil, feels overwhelmed and unaccomplished despite her thriving career. Just as she decides to play a Hamlet adaptation to find a lost sense of meaning, she has her social media accounts stolen by an identical doppelganger. Business flourishes as a quarantined Fernanda investigates who stole her identity and why, as she tries to redefine herself personally and professionally.

We question the most unquestionable period in our history. The result was an international investigation with part of secret attempts, discovery of Soviet documents and a lot of investigation by the Brazilian media. It was all under our eyes.

Sao Paulo, Brazil. Isabel, a 25-year-old girl, is kidnapped. The first ATM the criminals try to withdraw money from is broken. It's almost 10:00pm. The kidnappers realize they will not be able to get to the next one on time. What was meant to be an express kidnapping becomes an all-night imprisonment.

An old man seeks for a new purpose to his life, trying to get accepted by reluctant ambulance crew, assisting homeless people.

The dawn is strange, with a harbinger of change. The next morning, Maria receives a mysterious visitor that leaves José disturbed and will lead her to re-signify her own destiny.

Chico is tired of the relationship and his wife Nena's complaints. After spending 15 years together Chico has zero corauge to ask for a divorce. He decides to follow his friend's advice and hire a lover for his wife, in hopes that she gets involved with him and ends their marriage.

The Gang gets together to spend Christmas at Mônica's house and Chico Bento is the special guest. Then comes the idea of donating used toys to children who receive nothing at Christmas. Will everyone agree to participate in this beautiful task?

"Lula, 'bon vivant' who subsists at the expense of small blows, goes on with his life without a present or future purpose. Basically, he just tries to forget having been abandoned by his fiancee Helena, who gave in to his father's imposition. The situations in which he gets involved from then on are paradoxical, trying to survive in the best possible way and spending money he doesn't have, but which comes to him in one way or another. On a day of complete despair, Lula meets a group of "hippies" and leaves catechized. Willing to anything, he becomes a preacher of new customs and new ethics of life. In turn, Helena, whose marriage had failed, dreams of meeting Lula again, hoping to return to his arms.

Embarking on a whimsical adventure, Monica and her friends take center stage in four captivating tales. The first, "O Plano Infalível," showcases Jimmy Five's latest scheme to defeat Monica and her indomitable bunny companion. In "Um Amor de Ratinho," Monica attends a costume party dressed as a mouse, unaware that a small mishap would awaken a genuine mouse's affectionate feelings towards her. The third story, "A Ermitã," sees Monica bid farewell to her friends, venturing alone into the heart of the forest to live an independent life. Lastly, in "O Império Empacota," Jimmy Five's courage and true affection for Monica are unveiled when he fearlessly engages in an interplanetary battle against aliens, all in an effort to save his beloved big-toothed friend.

Brasil Paralelo's new documentary brings together testimonies from residents, experts and former members of criminal organizations to show how the public security crisis took hold in Rio.

An experimental collective film lasting little more than an hour, compiled from 10 episodes by a total of 14 different young Brazilian filmmakers. The project was an initiative of the directing duo Felipe Bragança and Marina Meliande, who sent a ‘letter of concern’ to inspire the participants. In it, a 16-year-old girl wrote about her dreams, which have been translated by the directors into films about love, youth and the possibilities of cinema.

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

The documentary questions the knowledge of sociology in the face of the crises of the contemporary world. Experts in the subject discuss and evaluate the usefulness of this discipline and propose new ways for its application.

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.

Documentary about middle-class people in Rio de Janeiro, in the 1960s, when Brazil was going through a hard period in its history, with the military coup and the following dictatorship. Interviews with people in the street disclose their fears, aspirations and political alienation.

Three blind sisters, Regina, Maria and Conceição, earn their living by singing in front of churches, in Brazil... They tell their amazing stories, full of drama, heartache, rape, poverty, death and hope.

Between bars and shows, Dodô Pankada divides his time between his work as a barber and the stages of São Paulo's independent music scene, where he sings forró and other genres that are part of his Northeastern roots. Alongside him is Ericoness, a curious and eccentric outsider, who enters Dodô's world with the goal of documenting his routine and trying to understand what makes him continue pursuing his dream.

After being tricked into burning his cash on the stock market, a man embarks on an odyssey through the business underworld with a single goal: revenge.

Nuno is a man working at a hot dog stand, who also invented a machine which promises to revolutionize the shoe industry- a foot scanner. In the middle of a gasoline embargo and finding himself in a strange predicament, Nuno becomes mysteriously confined to his car, finding his life suddenly embargoed.

Racked with anxiety in the chaotic political landscape of 1990s Brazil, Clara finds solace in starving herself, experiencing both rapture and torture. In this elliptical non-fiction film, anorexia becomes a way for Clara to challenge womanhood and find a place in an uncertain, surreal, and brutal world.

Three widows of political prisoners united against the dictatorship in Brazil and the repression of the military regime.

Flavio Danillo is a personal trainer whose students attend him at the gym. At home, Flavio works his body into a state of decay. Suddenly, his body no longer responds his mind taking over control.

Even the most loyal admirer of Tom Jobim, the most documented Brazilian artist throughout the world, cannot imagine the surprises he will encounter in this film. It contains previously unreleased pictures and images captured for 15 years by Ana Jobim, his wife, that show details of the life and work of Tom Jobim. Shot in New York, Rio de Janeiro and the family ranch in Poço Fundo, the film shows his intimacy with his children, the birth of important songs, parties at home with other musicians, and even a unusual Jobim in pajamas, in an “expedition” in the woods. “When someone visits the intimacy of a great artists, possibly the distance between him and the myth is felt to be smaller. For me it is the opposite; the distance becomes greater and I have more conscience of the myth”, says Ana.

A detective is hired by a mysterious woman to find her missing husband, a master of disguises, and important industry executive.

The story of William da Silva Lima, the last survivor of the group that founded the Comando Vermelho at the end of the 1970s. It shows him living together with the political prisoners incurred under the same National Security Law and his leadership in the Ilha Grande Prison creating a type of unheard of conduct and solidarity in the Brazilian prisons. The film goes on to tell of the group's actions on the streets of Rio de Janeiro during the beginning of the 80s when they irritated the police with their daring robberies, as well as portraying the surprising love story between William and Tereza. The narrative weaves its way between the intimate conflict and the spectacular assaults and escapes.

Teenage swimmer Olivia's main goal is to enter and win the Brazilian National Swimming Championship: an already-difficult task, made harder by her struggle with anorexia and the daily pressures of family and friends. However, her friend Ana seems to approve of her idea of persisting in illness.

Things get tense between a director and an actor during an interview about their new movie.

Comedy anthology in three segments, each one involving beautiful and uninhibited women.

Ana Argento, an accomplished cartoon artist yet frustrated with her relationships, meets two other lonely characters with peculiar lives. Daniel Torres is a sociopath and rapist coroner. Tom is a chronic cataleptic who ironically is a life insurance salesman. They could only meet in one place: the morgue.

What does it mean to be free? The Cocoon explores the feeling of imprisonment experienced by women who try to find freedom – not only in times of social isolation.

Edmundo is the caretaker of a ranch in São Paulo. He lives isolated in nature. His mother's presence haunts him with poetry and memories of the hinterland where he was born. The fine line between memory and delirium leads Edmundo to plunge into fantasies. The poet-caretaker, face to face with death, seeks to give significance to life.

Claudia Maccari, an Italian doctor who has a Brazilian adopted son suffering from leukemia, goes to Rio de Janeiro to find the child's biological mother for a transplant. She is reluctantly helped by a Detective.

In Buenos Aires, Frederico hides in a ship going to Rio de Janeiro to travel for free. But Azulão, the cook, finds him and blackmails him into working in the kitchen. Meanwhile, Alberto, the captain, receives a radio message saying that there was a dangerous international spy on board. Things get worse when some passports are mixed-up.

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.

Luiza, a shy, awkward 15 year-old girl from Rio, dreams of being an artist. Her life is just starting to make sense when Luiza's world falls apart when her mother suffers an acute schizophrenic episode. Determined to hold her family together, Luiza must find the strength to face fear, loneliness and discrimination as she takes over the household and her mother's care.

A group of scientists digs on land within the Amazon in search of fertile black earth, used for agricultural purposes. As they approach the site of the Kawa Indians, they notice that the land acquires energetic and sensory powers.

A documentary on the importance of the Spiritism doctrine around the world, from its inception with Allan Kardec's works and experiences, first reported on "The Book of Spirits" and then other works, up to its current influence, wisdom and legacy with teachings about faith, human and spiritual evolution, the physical plan and the spiritual plan.

When chaos takes over the streets, the life of a ten-year-old boy begins to crumble. It is at the moment when the desperation is based that Captain Brazil finds space.

It's a day of waiting for the young boy Chico and his grandmother Rosa, both for better news from the hospital and for the lunar eclipse.

At the same time that Elisa says goodbye to Heliomar, she meets young Michel.

In a country town in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Januária is going to marry the shy and naive Amorim. But in her heart she wants to escape with her dream hero, the cowboy Roy Pereira, and start a new life in Texas.

A girl discovers that the only TV in town is going to be closed by the Mayor and the only people who can help her are the residents and a character who lives inside the television.

After returning from her husband's requiem mass, Clarice gets into an argument with her daughter Andrea about the family's dark past.

Rodrigo and Beatriz are a couple who, after going through a traumatic event, invite their friend, Ana, to stay isolated at their home during the pandemic. Everything goes smoothly for the first few days, with an uncomfortable atmosphere of seduction between the three of them, but nothing out of the ordinary. Then, one morning, Rodrigo sees Ana's name on the list of deaths from covid-19. Everyone thinks it's weird and believes it was just a mistake in the publication, but strange events start to happen around the house. Rodrigo is intrigued and starts a personal investigation to find out if Ana is really alive.

The feature film ' The Birth Reborn' portrays the serious obstetric reality in the world, which is characterized by an alarming number of cesarean or deliveries with traumatic and unnecessary interventions, as opposed to what is known and recommended by science today. This situation has serious perinatal, psychological, social, anthropological and financial consequences. Through the reports of some of the leading experts in the area and the latest scientific discoveries, the film questions the current obstetric model, leads to a reflection on the new paradigm of the twenty-first century and the future of a civilization born without the so-called 'love hormones', released only under specific conditions of labor.

Documentary about Flamengo, one of the most popular soccer teams in Brazil