I love cinema and have an even more special affection for national productions. I see that many people end up not knowing many productions, only the big award winners, so today I’m here to share 3 Brazilian films that you may not know, but that are worth knowing.
- The Movie of My Life: Selton Mello (2017)
One thing that the three films will have in common is the poetic way of telling stories. In “The Movie of My Life”, we follow with lightness the story of Tony Terranova, a young man who needs to deal with the absence of his father, who left without warning his family and has not given any news to his son since then.
Passionate about books and the movies he watches in the big city cinema, Tony makes love, poetry, and cinema his great reasons for living. Until the truth about his father begins to emerge, forcing him to take the reins of his life.
Elena: Petra Costa (2012)
Could it be that through clippings, we can understand a whole life? In this film, director Petra tells the story of her sister, Elena. Elena travels to New York with the same dream as her mother: to be a movie actress. She leaves behind a childhood spent in hiding during the years of the military dictatorship. She leaves Petra, her seven-year-old sister. Two decades later, Petra also becomes an actress and leaves for New York in search of Elena. She has only clues. Home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary.
At all times Petra expects to find Elena walking the streets in a silk blouse. She takes the train that Elena took, she knocks on her friends’ doors, she walks their paths. And she ends up discovering Elena in an unexpected place. Gradually, the traits of the two sisters are confused, it is no longer known who is one, who is the other. The mother senses. Petra deciphers. Now that she has finally found Elena, Petra must let her go.
Stories that only exist when remembered: Júlia Murat (2011)
Lightness, stories and different lives meet in this film. In Stories That Only Exist When Remembered, backpacker Rita (Lisa E. Fávero) arrives in the fictional village of Jotuomba, in the Paraíba Valley, with her iPod, her digital camera and some empty cans turned into pinholes.
It turns out that, in Jotuomba, Rita finds what the type of slow exposure pinhole photography always aims to record: the passage of time. It’s not just the arrival of the young backpacker that destabilizes the routine of the elderly in the valley; it is the contact with the recording of their own old age in images that transforms the characters of Stories That Only Exist When Remembered.
Oh, this movie inspired a personal project of mine, the Stories that Only Exist when Told. Check it out here!
All of these movies are available in full on YouTube, and you can find them by clicking on the links below:
These movies touched me deeply and showed me how Brazil is full of wonderful artists. Oh, and do you know of any other movies? I love exploring the world of Brazilian cinema, so please leave your suggestions in the comments!
Until next time,
kisses.
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