Filmographies - films at UST by Country: Brazil

Antônia is soulful look into the lives of four women living on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Determined to escape their poverty-stricken lives, the talented young women form an all-female rap group but find their road to success is riddled with sexism, racism, and violence. One by one, they succumb to their grim realities, putting the group's future--and their lifelong friendships--in jeopardy until they learn that out of struggle comes strength, and out of strength, the courage to continue on.

Set in Sao Paulo's House of Detention. An oncologist arrives at the jail to test patients for HIV infection. Seeing the disease, overcrowding, and rampant circulation of drugs, and the doctor comes to realize the internal power structure among the prisoners. Narratives develop, including the attempted murder of Dagger, the solitary confinement of Chico, and the romance between Lady Di and Too Bad. The doctor eventually sees the prisoners as survivors, leading up to the violent conclusion: a reconstruction of the October 2, 1992, prison riot known as the Carandiru Massacre

When Alice, a Sao Paulo manicurist, wife and mother has a chance meeting with an old flame, she is forced to re-examine her life and address her romantic dreams. Feeling her youth and sexuality slipping away, Alice flirts with a rapturous affair to escape her repressive family life and avoid the fate of her aging mother, who drags out her remaining years as the housemaid.

When a young boy witnesses his mother's accidental death, a lonely, retired school-teacher reluctantly takes the child under her wing.

Childhood best friends Deco and Naldinho own a motorboat, which they use for their illicit dealings and their career as petty criminals. One day they meet a stripper named Karinna and both fall in love with her. Suddenly the friendship between Deco and Naldinho seems uncertain to survive.

A tale of how crime affects the poor population of Rio de Janeiro. Though the narrative skips around in time, the main focus is on Cabeleira who formed a gang called the Tender Trio. He and his best friend, Bene, become crime lords over the course of a decade. When Bene is killed before he can retire, Little Ze attempts to take out his arch enemy, Sando Cenoura. But Sando and a young gangster named Manu form an alliance and begin a gang war with Little Ze. Amateur photographer Buscape, a good-natured boy who comically learns that he's not cut out to be a hoodlum, takes pictures of the brutal crime war, making their story famous.

Growing up in a culture dictated by violence and run by street gangs, teenagers Acerola and Laranjinha have become close as brothers. With their 18th birthdays fast approaching, Laranjinha sets out to find the father he never met, while Acerola struggles to raise his own young son. But, when they suddenly find themselves on opposite sides of a gang war, the lifelong friends are forced to confront a shocking secret from their shared past.

Set in the sertâo of Brazil in 1938, an impoverished couple, Manuel and Rosa, join a religious cult which is pursued by a hired killer.

Pedro, a 70-year-old gay nurse and a big fan of Greta Garbo, needs to find an empty bed in the hospital where he works to save his best friend, Daniela. To do so, he decides to help Jean, a criminal in police custody, escape from the premises. But then, worried about Jean's health, Pedro sets the criminal up in his apartment to treat his wounds. The two wind up having a highly-charged affair that brings to the surface Pedro's won solitude, now augmented by Daniela's imminent death

An engineer on assignment in Brazil loses his 6-year-old son in the rainforest. After a ten year search, he finds the man that had once been his boy among the reclusive tribe who had adopted him.

A richly produced, deeply moving chronicle of the early years of Brazil's most beloved leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who rose from extreme poverty to govern the largest nation in Latin America. A true tale of perseverance, family, love, honor and heroism.

Tall, dark, androgynously handsome, Pierre wears eyeliner and a black lace g-string, while having sex with both boys and girls. The confusion only goes deeper when the teenager's single, working-class mom is arrested for having stolen him at birth. Thanks to the wonders of DNA, he's returned to his biological parents: bourgeois, straight- laced and thrilled to have him back, at least until he shows up in a zebra-print mini dress.

A powerful epic about a man of the sword and a man of the cloth who unite to shield a South American Indian tribe from brutal subjugation by 18th-century colonial empires.

Returning to Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Nise Da Silveira returns to work in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city where she refuses to employ the new and violent electroshock therapy in the treatment of schizophrenics. Ridiculed by doctors, she is forced to take on the abandoned Sector for Occupational Therapy, where she would start a revolution through painting, animals, and love. Based on a true story.

Tells the story of André Luiz, a doctor who experiences an enlightening spiritual awakening after his death. When he wakes up in the spiritual world, he embarks on a new journey of self-discovery and transformation, from his first days in a dimension of pain and suffering, until when he is rescued and taken to the spiritual Astral City.

Based on a true story, The Middle of the World is the story of a couple and their five children--ages ranging from 6 months to 14 years old--as they travel 3,200 km by bicycle to chase a dream. Romao, an illiterate and unemployed truck driver, and his wife Rose, leave the State of Paraiba in Brazil, and over the course of six months, travel across five states to reach Rio de Janeiro, in a quest for a job and a decent life.

This retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice Greek legend is set against Rio de Janeiro's madness during Carnival. Orpheus, a trolley car conductor, is engaged to Mira but in love with Eurydice. A vengeful Mira and Eurydice's ex-lover, costumed as Death, pursue Orpheus and his new paramour through the feverish Carnival night.

Despite a recent wave of violent crime in the city, manual laborer and night student Valter lives a relatively content life with his family in working-class São Paulo. But when three criminals move in next door, a bunker mentality sets in and Valter soon discovers he is not the only one perversely affected by the mounting chaos of a city under siege, or the unsettling presence of his new neighbors.

Ten-year-old Pixote (Portuguese slang for 'Peewee') is one of three million homeless children in Brazil. Hauled off to a crowded detention center, wide-eyed Pixote witnesses rapes, beatings and other acts of random violence by both the guards and the inmates. With the transvestite Lilica and his lover Dito, Pixote escapes from the reform school where he and his friends hit the streets alone, embarking on a life of violence and crime.

A look at the class struggle of Brazil over a period of four decades is told through the closely linked yet fatally divided lives of Miguel, a middle-class white rebel, and Jorge, his black childhood friend. Remembering their time of imprisonment by the right wing government in the '60s, Miguel returns as a progressive politician to the prison where Jorge serves a sentence as a gang leader, to seek his help in changing the cycle of death and poverty.

The story centers on Val, a hard-working live-in housekeeper in modern-day São Paulo. Val is perfectly content to take care of every one of her wealthy employers' needs, from cooking and cleaning to being a surrogate mother to their teenage son, who she has raised since he was a toddler. But when Val's estranged daughter Jessica shows up, the unspoken but intrinsic class barriers that exist within the home are thrown into disarray.

In 17th century Brazil groups of runaway black slaves escaped to mountainous jungle strongholds, where they formed self-governing communities known as quilombos. This film chronicles the most famous, the Palmares, and their legendary chieftain Ganga Zumba.

This is the story of the BOPE, a SWAT-like team at war with the drug lords of Rio de Janeiro. Racing against time, its hard-driving captain puts a pair of rookies through hell in an effort to shape a worthy successor and clear out a drug-infested slum before his imminent retirement.

At the end of this first decade of the new milennium, a turning point has been reached in the story of the Amazon rainforest. As the world wonders how to tackle the challenges posed by climate change, the President of Brazil, Luis Incacio Lula de Silva, makes a bold announcement at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change, in November 2009: the reduction in deforestation in Brazil envisages between now and 2020 will decrease Brazil's emission of greenhouse gases by as much as the total reduction proposed by the U.S. for the same period! This ambitious commitment made by Brazil is only possible because of the new policies of control and monitoring which have been put in place over the last two years. A totally new situation is beginning to take shape, one that will attempt to transform the future of the rainforest. It is this new reality that is the subject of this film...The count-down has begun in the Brazilian rainforest: on one side, the Indians and traditional forest-dwellers who hope they can make their livelihood out of living trees, not dead ones. And, facing them, the men and companies who continue to see the Amazon as a source of endless- but clearly finite- wealth.

In early 2002, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, public officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, indigenous nations, farmers, and labor--including 11,000 young people--gathered for the World Social Forum. Called in response to the elite gathering of the World Economic Forum in New York, this week of workshops, panel discussions, and high-spirited demonstrations was inspirational for those attending.The international event, covered extensively by the media in other parts of the world, was virtually ignored by the US press. Another World is Possible presents a sampling of the issues and events at this enormous and creative gathering. Amongst the speakers featured are Naomi Klein, Vandana Shiva, Kevin Danaher, Wolfgang Sachs, and Rigoberta Menchu. This documentary impression of the gathering gives hope to US activists that, despite the media blackout, the movement for social justice is alive and well around the world.

In 2003, the Wide Angle program Time for School profiled children in seven countries--Afghanistan, Benin, Brazil, India, Japan, Kenya, and Romania--as they started their first year of school, often in the face of great adversity. Three years later this Wide Angle episode returns to visit each child, updating the progress of their educational and personal development. The similarities and contrasts that emerge among the lives of these young people provide rich insight into the disparities of opportunity around the globe--underscoring the hard fact that more than 100 million children worldwide are growing up without schooling.

Part of the Emerging Powers series, this film examines Brazil's changing economy. Brazil has the largest economy in Latin America, but a long history of inflation and corruption. Includes an interview with President Fernando Henrique Cardoso describing the steps his administration has taken to open up and privatize Brazil's market.

HIV/AIDS sufferers in Brazil today get the same treatment as HIV/AIDS sufferers in the USA and Europe-the same free antiretroviral drugs, clinical care, and monitoring. Since Brazil started to manufacture its own HIV/AIDS drugs in 1997, the country's patients have proved just as capable of taking their medicines on time as Americans or Europeans, and the Brazilian government's national HIV/AIDS program has halved the death rate from AIDS, prevented thousands of new patients from being hospitalized, and helped stabilize the epidemic. This has given the lie to the drug companies' arguments. So is Brazil's program the template for AIDS treatment elsewhere? This program examines whether it can be replicated in other countries.

This 13-part series guides viewers chronologically and thematically through the region's varied genres and narrative styles, linking them to centuries of warfare, colonization, and national struggles for independence and identity.

This 13-part series guides viewers chronologically and thematically through the region's varied genres and narrative styles, linking them to centuries of warfare, colonization, and national struggles for independence and identity.

This documentary helps the viewer discover Brazil through the eyes of its people and explores the surrounding beaches, jungles and landscaping mountains that make this land. It shows the roles that history, geography, culture, religion and the natural environment have played in shaping this country. From a government worker who dreams of performing the samba at Carnaval, to a young man whose life is capoeira, to a river trader whose livelihood depends on the Amazon, and a maid determined to win the biggest amateur soccer tournament in the world, this films shows some of the individuals who personify the energy and intensity of this tropical South American paradise.

Reflects on the history and more recent changes of the Amazon River valley and rainforest area, primarily through the introduction of a group of indigenous families. Through comparison of their current lives with the lives they led when the filmmaker first met them 15 years earlier, the film portrays the significant differences of their past and current lives. As their native lands undergo extreme changes due to deforestation and development, questions are raised and discussed regarding the chances of renewing or otherwise protecting the local population and their environment.

Discusses the effects of the world's increasing urban population on the environment and on our quality of life. This program addresses issues such as transportation, urban sprawl, socioeconomic divisions, and pollution. It looks at what sustainability means in locations as diverse as East L.A., Vancouver, Portland, and São Paulo and Curitiba, Brazil. Commentary is provided by Jane Jacobs, Bill McKibben, Bill Rees, California senator Martha Escutia, and John Ryan.

Looks at various police forces in cities throughout the world. Addresses issues that affect different countries (such as Brazil, China, Germany, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, and the United States) and how the police force in that country handles the local situation.

Documents how former drug-trafficker Anderson Sa, and Jose Junior's Grupo Cultural AfroReggae are working to unite a Rio slum, or favela, against a violent drug industry and police oppression. The Grupo Cultural AfroReggae organization uses music as an instrument of change, to offer an alternative to the drug lords as role models for the children of the favela, and Sa is the lead vocalist for their band, AfroReggae.

Sao Paulo is Brazil's biggest city and the business hub of the country. Nestling between the skyscrapers are the favelas or urban slums housing the poor. Life went to the favela Coliseu, in the heart of the richest parts of Sao Paulo. It epitomizes a stark fact that has come to characterize Brazil today. The gulf between the rich and the poor is one of the biggest in the world. Almost half the country's wealth is concentrated in the hands of just twenty thousand families - and that's out of a population 184 million. Life assess what progress has been made in two and half years by Lula, the worker President.

A language that can be spoken, hummed, or whistled? A language with no unique words for color or numbers? Linguistics professor Daniel Everett claims that the unique language of the Piraha people of the Amazon is exactly that. More than 30 years ago, he traveled as a missionary into the amazon rainforest to teach the tribe, but they ended up teaching him. Their way of life and unique form of communication have profoundly changed Everett, and inspired a theory that could undermine the most powerful theory (or theorist) of linguistics.

Can Saatchi & Saatchi turn Sagatiba cachaça, a sugarcane liquor popular in Brazil, into a globally recognized brand? This program tracks the Sagatiba launch from start to finish, and in the process reveals the inner workings of an ad agency whose name is synonymous with success. Footage of key agency players brainstorming, running client meetings, producing commercials, and more illustrates how the iconic Jesus statue in Rio became the model for a cool young lookalike who stands in as the living image of the 'Pure Spirit of Brazil'.

Disc 1: "Sweet fresh water:" Explores the Amazon River, the world's largest river system, from its source in the Peruvian Andes to its huge coastal delta in Brazil. Great waterfalls, such as the Angel Falls in Venezuela and Iguassu in Brazil, demonstrate the power of rivers to shape the landscape. "Jungle:" Host David Attenborough makes a vertical journey down a Kapok tree, whose crown emerges above the jungle canopy. He descends by ropes through various layers to the forest floor below, finding en route some of the most colorful and extraordinary plants and animals on earth. "Open ocean:" Looks at the vast amount of space covered by the earth's oceans, underwater topography, the minute, drifting plankton and forests of kelp, food chains, and the evolution of fish and mammals.
Disc 2: "Northern forests:" Explores the adaptations that trees make to enable them to survive long, cold winters. He shows how animals depend upon the trees for leaves, cones, and bark. "Seas of grass:" Grass grows all over the world, sustaining a host of creatures, particularly the African grasslands, which are home to the greatest collection of savannah animals. Here, antelope, zebra and wildebeest reside with their predators, lions and cheetahs. "Frozen world:" Visits icy mountain slopes in the Andes and travels to the remote Arctic and Antarctic to explore how various plants and animals have adapted to these frigid, forbidding conditions.
Disc 3: "Margins of the land:" Talks about the animals and plants that make their homes in the shifting world of mud and sand in tidal areas. "Sky above:" Describes the atmosphere as a covering to the earth that is constantly on the move with currents of air manufacturing the world's weather. He shows that in order to drift and fly, plants and animals must overcome gravity, but at the same time, the world would be a chaotic, weightless place without gravity. "Baking deserts:" Describes how desert animals survive heat and drought in a variety of ingenious ways.
Disc 4: "Worlds apart:" Despite their often small size and isolation, many islands are inhabited by wildlife. Explores Aldabra Island in the Indian Ocean to visit giant tortoises that have reached their zenith in a hostile landscape of jagged coral rock where survival may mean eating your neighbor. "Buildings of the earth:" Reveals how huge forces formed the earth, how continents move, and how the planet earth has become so amazingly varied. He visits an erupting volcano in Iceland, finds giant plants on Mount Kenya, and investigates the recolonization of Krakatoa and Mount St. Helens by wildlife. "New worlds:" Looks at the mixed fortunes of a wide variety of animals that have been affected by man's damage or changes to the environment. He also examines the fortunes of man himself and his impact through time on the earth. Also provides a glimpse into the possible future of the earth .

When Luiz Inácio da Silva, a former metalworker known as 'Lula,' won the Brazilian presidency in 2002 on a campaign promising agrarian reform and an end to hunger, popular hopes for social change galvanized the nation. This film examines his failures and successes within the context of his election promises. It sketches Lula's personal story and blends this biography with a look at living conditions for Brazil's impoverished majority.

Several stories are told simultaneously: a frog farm in northern Brazil launders money for a corrupt politician; a young woman who was kidnapped for ransom talks about her ordeal; a plastic surgeon discusses then demonstrates how to reconstruct a severed ear; a young business man has his cars armored and takes a course in evasive driving; a policeman in Sao Paulo's anti-kidnapping squad discusses his work; a civil engineer, the attorney general, and a district attorney describe their anti-corruption efforts. Violence and corruption is Brazil: the object is money.

Updated with scenes from April 2000, a documentary on major criticisms of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two of the most powerful financial institutions in the world. Five country case studies are presented, each concentrating on a different aspect of the critics' charges.

This theatrical version of the HBO series takes us around the globe to reveal stories of people who have been touched by AIDS: James (Uganda), a seven-year-old orphan who is taking care of his little sister Jessica; Sergei and Lena (Russia), young parents whose previous drug use has left them HIV-positive; Nagaraj and Bhanu (India), a young family facing life with AIDS in a small village, Alex (Brazil), a 27-year-old gay man who is trying to rebuild his health and get back to living a full and productive life; and Lek (Thailand), a former sex worker.

The last two surviving members of the Piripkura people, a nomadic tribe in the Mato Grasso region of Brazil, struggle to maintain their indigenous way of life amidst the region's massive deforestation. Pakyî and Tamandua live off the land in the remote rainforest relying on a machete, an ax, and a torch lit in 1998. Jair Candor, a coordinator with the National Indian Foundation of Brazil, first made contact in 1989 and arranged for protected status which requires renewal every two years. As time runs short for Candor to find the two men, he and the camera team trek deep into the remote territory, as the systemic violence used against indigenous Amazon people is revealed--a situation likely to become more perilous with Brazil's newly elected President.

The documentary weaves together the daily life stories of Khady, Bilkusben, Oraiza, Dona Antonia, and Gila who, through candor and humor, infuse their communities with a passion for change. The women spearhead rainforest preservation (women working as rubber-tappers in the Brazilian rainforest); sustain a vast co-operative of rural women (India: SEWA: the largest trades union in the world with 700,000 members); promote an end to female genital cutting (FGC) (Senegal: communities abandoning FGC); strengthen opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine (Women in Black in Jerusalem); maintain a farm, Navdanya (in the foothills of the Himalayas) to further economic independence and biodiversity by preserving women's role as seed keepers.

Hosted by National Public Radio's Scott Simon, the film begins in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, where razor-thin Bushmen use the Hoodia cactus to fend off hunger. But now, a drug firm has patented the Hoodia's appetite-suppressant properties and is using it to make a diet product for obese Americans and Europeans. Hoodia is a metaphor for a world where some people die from too much food, but millions more die from too little. In Kenya as we meet Jane Ininda, a scientist who is trying to make agriculture more productive in her country, while her own brother, Salesio, barely survives the drought, poor soils and pests that constantly threaten his crops. Through powerful stories, we come to understand the dimensions of the hunger crisis. A visit to Brazil finds a nation energized by a new campaign called FOME ZERO -- Zero Hunger. In the huge city of Belo Horizonte, we meet a remarkable leader and see how, under the programs she supervises, the right to food is guaranteed to all. In the countryside, we are introduced to the Landless Peasants' Movement, which is giving hope to millions of hungry Brazilians.

Film focusing on patterns of urbanization and poverty, and its relationship to globalization and market regulation. Interviews with scholars, experts and oridinary individuals facing urban hardships are provided throughout. Commentators include Jeffrey Sachs, Paul Krugman, Sakika Fukuda Parr, and Robert Zoellick. City residents, favela dwellers, and merchants in India, Turkey, Nigeria, Brazil and China are also interviewed.

Director Oliver Stone visits seven presidents in five countries in South America to gain some understanding about the political and social ideas and the revolutions, and to clear up how people view them. Includes interviews with Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, Argentinean president Cristina Kirchner, Cuban president Raul Castro, Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da Silva (Brazil), Rafael Carrea (Ecuador), and Fernando Lugo (Paraguay).

Curitiba, Brazil is remarkable for urban planning innovations. This documentary, presented in 5 segments, looks at the management of city waste, the planning of urban parks, an integrated transportation system, a practical support scheme for low income workers and the establishment of a vibrant city mall.

"Surrounded by the Amazon rainforest, the twin cities of Leticia and Tabatinga and the village of Santa Rosa constitute a triple border between Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Beautifully photographed and researched, Lands explores the social and ecological impact of territorial limits, commerce and modernity on the lives of the local and indigenous population.Situated side by side, on the same riverbank of the Solimoes, Tabatinga and Letica (capital of the Amazonas state in Colombia) share close economic ties and are connected by a single promenade. A pole with two flags marks the point where Amizade Avenue (Brazil) becomes Internacional Avenue (Colombia). Both cities are home to many Peruvian immigrants and Colombian desplazados fleeing the Farc guerrilla armed conflicts. Directly across the river, at a few minutes distance by boat, is the Peru and teh village of Santa Rosa. Cut-off from the economic centers of their respective countries by the forest and the distance, this frontier region is characterized by the constant transit of people and exchange of goods, the incessant sound of motorcycles and radios, the mixture of traditional and technological knowledge and the coexistence of different cultures and ethnicities"--Container.

Examines the trials of the men who killed Catholic missionary Dorothy Stang, whose outspoke advocacy for the poor and the environment, particularly for the preservation of the rainforest's, managed to anger those with business interests in the Amazon region.

After witnessing the 1993 Candelaria massacre of homeless children by Rio de Janeiro's military police, Brazilian social activists, Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, has founded Projeto Uerê ("Children of Light"). Children of Light's mission is to protect and educate the survivors of the massacre, as well as the many other homeless children in Rio, by providing safe houses, education, music, and above all affection to children who have been abused and have lived in poverty all their life.

Explores the themes of immigration, alienation and assimilation through the works of Japanese-Brazilian artists, descendants of a century-old diaspora that has given São Paulo, Brazil, the largest Japanese population outside Japan.