Discoveries from Brazil World Cinema

In March 2003, five mountain-climbers go to Tierra del Fuego, in the extreme South of South America, to climb Mount Sarmiento. Unexpected events abort the mission, turning a documentary about achievement into a portrait of failure and frustration.

This controversial film from director Glauber Rocha records the funeral of his friend, major Brazilian painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.

Experimental documentary dissecting artistic inspiration through raw imagery and collage, aiming to answer a defining question for artists: What to film?

Álvaro, 12 years old, is the only child of separated parents. He is in a phase of many doubts and concerns. He wants to grow up soon, but did his father take too long to grow up? What did the father do with the girls? It's difficult to ask, Alvaro's father has a strange way of saying things.

In the drought areas of Northeastern of Brazil, groups of migrants move trying to find better place to live, at least with water. Some of them go to Recife, to get a vessel to Santos expecting to have a better life in the Southern. In the poor area of Recife, an old washerwoman launders clothes to survive and support her family. Her husband Zé Luis, a former sailor, is crazy due to a hit of the boom of a mast on his head. Her older son Raimundo works in a grocery and selling mangoes on the street, trying to save money to move to the Southeastern with his girl-friend Aurora. Her daughter wants to be a prostitute to have a better quality of life. Her younger son is seriously sick.

The film features biographical data on one of the most popular Brazilian poets -- CASIMIRO DE ABREU.

Animations (only parts in nuclei in the film) and images, many of them archival and foreign, illustrate that the notion of time is associated with movement and its measurement is performed by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the Sun. The angle of inclination of the Earth in this last movement also marks the climatic seasons. From the need for greater accuracy in measuring time, gnomons and solar quadrants arose, for whose reading the duodecimal numbering is used. Based on this numbering, time zones and mechanical measuring devices were established, illustrated by the clock mechanism with a church bell. The evolution of astronomy determines the creation of more accurate electronic devices for the evaluation of time, such as the meridian telescope, the Markowitz chamber, the electronic oscillators and the telescope, with which astronomers work at the National Observatory.

When obsessively preparing for her next role, the actress is sucked into a maelstrom caused by her own paranoia.

Fausto and Gilda who are married for a long time and love themselves deeply. But Gilda dies leaving Fausto alone with their 8-year-old daughter and a governess. Being shaken, he retreats to his country house. His female doctor is the only one who visits him. He starts being plagued every night by wet dreams, visions and hallucinations of some women and his wife, who insistently asks him to join him. After some time, Fausto can't distinguish any longer what is reality or dream.

"My Uncle with the Camera" follows 30 years of home movies shot by Paulo Henrique of his family in Vitória—an upper-middle-class family from Espírito Santo growing up in Brazil during the 1990s and 2000s. Through the intimate gaze of his camera, a political panorama of Brazil emerges, shaped by masculine family affectivity.

Fátima, Lô and Helena are three friends that love to dance forró. They live in the Alto da Penha, in Crato. As Fátima and Helena work hard taking care of the cemetery flowers, Lô recall the ladies for a forró party in the neighborhood.

The quiet life of an elderly frog, a devoted hatter, is suddenly altered when a fly invades his studio, triggering an existential battle between his language and good manners.

1970. Beatriz is an 18-year-old student. She is detained by the military dictatorship in Curitiba, Brazil, and tortured for ten days accused of belonging to the subversive student movement and an armed guerrilla that fights against the regime, VAR-Palmares.

A succession of events. The act of tangling. The creation of a new plot. Uniting interviewees from different places in São Carlos, 'enredo' entangles stories of different people, reflecting on space, identity and recognition in the countryside. In this new plot of experiences, being black is beyond resistance, it is resignification and celebration of oneself and the other.

Glória Hartman, a mature woman going through an existential and financial crisis, returns to her hometown, which is undergoing a process of abandonment. Through a crack in the ruins of where the writer Clarice Lispector once lived, Glória begins to see fantastic scenes that will change her life.

Pedro is a simple man. He goes to work, eats dinner and goes out with his wife. But, on an ordinary night, he receives a call that changes his whole perspective in life, unlocking memories that were buried a long time ago.

Interspersed with documentation of dancer Juliana Carneiro da Cunha’s "Possession" performance, which draws from Christian mysticism, in the filmmaker’s words this experimental short is about “the psychic suffering of women in a patriarchal society”. It takes the viewer on a disorienting journey—with abrupt cuts in sound and image—through the Catholic Church, repressed sexuality, racial violence perpetrated by white women, maternal fatigue, male chauvinism and drug addiction…

Porto Alegre, nowadays. At one of the most known streets of Porto Alegre, in exactly 11´10", people pass one another, interact, go on about their and our lives. Fiction and reality working side by side and vice-versa.

Who can afford to remain immature, and who is forced to grow up too soon? With this premise in mind, TeTo arrives with the aim of exploring queer experiences in their many forms, through the relationship between two people who are completely opposite yet complementary at the same time. Here in this shared house, we welcome Joaquim, Angela Maria, Ariel and everyone who wishes to follow the unfolding of this story.

Raul, a playboy, marries Sheila and hire Nina, a photographer, to take erotic snapshots of his wife. Nina acquires an interest on Sheila, and through a maid, investigates the couple's intimate life.

To get money and produce the play in which his girlfriend acts, an unemployed actor dresses up as a woman and falls in love with a millionaire widower.

“A Holandesinha” follows Luiza Godoi Acosta, a young woman with Down syndrome who dreams of becoming a filmmaker and sets out to create her first short film, "Lágrimas de um Pierrot". The documentary traces every stage of the creative process, revealing her worldview, the challenges she faces, and her triumphs over ableism. Produced in the countryside of Paraná, the film celebrates inclusion and affirms cinema as a space of possibility, belonging, and perseverance.

The French-Moroccan Alaoui family is preparing for a holiday reunion in their Marrakech home, eagerly awaiting the arrival of their daughter and sister, Leila. Their fragile balance is shattered when they learn she has been seriously injured while on assignment as a photographer in Burkina Faso. Cut off from her yet determined to bring her home, they struggle against the void her absence threatens to leave behind.

The film is set in Morro do Vidigal, one of the most famous favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Rita needs to give her son Léo a party that means a lot to her. But on the day of the party, she discovers that all the money for the event, which she had been saving for months, was stolen by Dudu. From this disappointment, Rita, who works at the beach, needs to race against time to make Léo's party possible and save Dudu's life. To do this, she will need the help of her friends.

Documentary about Brazilian samba songwriter and singer Paulinho da Viola, one of the most sophisticated musicians of the genre. The film shows his biography, influences, masters and friends, as well his simple and peculiar way of life, with activities like restoring old cars, working with wood, playing billiards.

Salvador, 1984. After twenty years of dictatorship, people go to the streets to ask for general elections. This will be a year of transformations for the country and the young Caio.

Hunting Season deals with the wave of homosexual murders that plagued São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in the 1980s. With street statements and cultural and artistic figures such, such as Zé Celso, Jorge Mautner, Roberto Piva and others.

Three filmmakers come together. But what do they have in common, anyway?

In a building in the south-central area of ​​Manaus, the most contrasting reactions are recorded during an earthquake felt by the building's residents. Meanwhile, the gardener Elizon describes in his own way the causes and possible consequences of the event.

“Nobody Leaves Alive” by André Ristum is shot in beautiful but also distancing black and white. Looking at the Venice line-up, this seems to be a trend this year among the maestros of cinema. The film is inspired by true events that took place in the last century in the “Colonia” hospital in Brazil. Whoever didn’t fit the standards of society, or their family’s perception of it, was locked away, tortured, and killed. There were altogether more than 60,000 victims. Hope dies last, and some of the inmates don’t give up the fight. We’re reminded of film classics such as “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest” or “Alcatraz”.

Carlos Drummond de Andrade's poetry is read by exponents of Brazilian culture, such as Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Adriana Calcanhoto, Fernanda Torres, Marilia Pera, Antonio Cicero and others.

Daniel (Pedro Garcia), an university student with physical and speech disabilities, finds out that Giulia (Nathalia Garcia), his unrequited love from college, is a sex worker. Then, he hires her services and comes to know the real woman behind his illusion.

O Aleijadinho, a study of the work of Antonio Francisco Lisboa, the architect whose cathedral de Andrade had assisted in the restoration of more than 20 years earlier. de Andrade dedicated the film to his father, who had sent him on the expedition.

Rosa imagines an image: a black woman in a waterfall. Is she from the past, the future, or another world? Everything feels strikingly real… While Paulo, her boyfriend, guides tourists through the black history of Curitiba, Rosa sets out in search of this image, unaware of the dangers the city holds for her.

On the rise, singer Agnaldo Reis finds himself forced to escape the pursuit of Baby's gang, who demand a monthly bribe from the artist in exchange for protection. The young man devises an ingenious escape plan.

a voyeurisTic capture of fLuid conscience of the urBan Queer niGht in são Paulo wIth it’s tunes, flAshes, waNderers and their edifications.

Somewhere in Rio Grande do Norte's countryside, Brazil, the wealthy farmer Elói Dantas (Álvaro Guimarães) decides to increase his patrimony even further by exploiting ores. To do this, he tries to appropriate the small site of Antônio Vaqueiro (José Marinho). Desperate, Antônio rushes to the aid of the gypsy healer Maria dos Remédios (Luiza Maranhão) and the poet and dreamer Tião Poeta (Lenicio Queirogo) to face the greed of Elói.

Documentary about the 68-generation, told through the story of the newspaper “O Sol”, one of the first vehicles of the alternative Brazilian press, produced daily for six months, in the 1960s. The newspaper spoke of culture, politics and education through satires and prominent figures in the cultural scene of the time passed through him. Archive scenes and music from the period seek to reconstitute the spirit of the 68-generation. The film has the participation of personalities such as Ziraldo, Zuenir Ventura, Arnaldo Jabor, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Carlos Heitor Cony, Fernando Gabeira, Betty Faria, Hugo Carvana, among others.

After a depressive episode, a pet shop attendant can no longer work. Medicated but still struggling, she is forced to return to her normal life.

A beautiful young woman living in an isolated fishing community on an island falls in love with an outsider, a train machinist. But her father, a violent religious fanatic interferes.

In New York City, an illegal immigrant gets into trouble because of his relationship with a self-destructive prostitute.

In a small Nepalese village nestled in the heart of a forest populated by wild elephants, Pirati is the matriarch of a Kinnar community. She dreams of escaping to a “normal” life with the man she is in love with. But when one of her daughters disappears, she must investigate and choose between love and responsibility to her community.

A depressed hotel servant goes through a rough night, while his story's interlaced with a number of situations experienced by the hotel guests.