I love cinema and have an even more special affection for Brazilian productions. Many people end up not discovering much of what is made here, only the big award winners, so today I want to share 3 Brazilian films that you might not know, but are definitely worth watching.
O Filme da Minha Vida (The Movie of My Life), Selton Mello (2017)
One thing these three films have in common is their poetic way of telling stories. In “O Filme da Minha Vida”, we gently follow the story of Tony Terranova, a young man who has to deal with the absence of his father, who left without warning the family and has not been in touch with his son since.
In love with books and with the films he sees at the cinema in the big city, Tony makes love, poetry and cinema his great reasons to live, until the truth about his father starts to surface and forces him to take control of his own life.
Elena, Petra Costa (2012)
Is it possible, through fragments, to understand an entire life? In this film, the director Petra tells the story of her sister, Elena. Elena travels to New York with the same dream as her mother: to become a film actress. She leaves behind a childhood spent in hiding during the years of the military dictatorship, and leaves Petra, her seven‑year‑old sister. Two decades later, Petra also becomes an actress and goes to New York in search of Elena. She only has a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary.
All the while, Petra expects to find Elena walking down the street in a silk blouse. She takes the train Elena took, knocks on her friends’ doors, retraces her paths. And she ends up finding Elena in an unexpected place. Little by little, the features of the two sisters blend together, and it is no longer clear who is one and who is the other. The mother senses it. Petra deciphers it. Now that she has finally found Elena, Petra needs to let her go.
Histórias que Só Existem Quando Lembradas (Stories Only Exist When Remembered), Júlia Murat (2011)
Lightness, stories and different lives meet in this film. In “Histórias que Só Existem Quando Lembradas”, the backpacker Rita (Lisa E. Fávero) arrives in the fictional village of Jotuomba, in the Paraíba Valley, with her iPod, her digital camera and a few empty tins turned into pinhole cameras.
In Jotuomba, Rita finds exactly what this slow‑exposure type of photography always longs to capture: the passage of time. It is not only the arrival of the young backpacker that unsettles the routine of the elderly inhabitants of the valley; it is the contact with the visual record of their own old age that transforms the characters of “Histórias que Só Existem Quando Lembradas”.
Oh, and this film inspired a personal project of mine, “Histórias que Só Existem Quando Contadas”. Go check it out.
All these films are available in full on YouTube.
These films moved me deeply and showed me how full of wonderful artists Brazil is. And do you know any other films? Exploring the world of Brazilian cinema is something I love, so leave your suggestions in the comments.
Until next time,
kisses.
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