Kanopy (Firm)
1) Tabu
Language
Portuguese
Description
Winner of Critic's Prize at the Berlin Film Festival 2012, Tabu is the exquisitely surreal two-part tale of Aurora, who upon her death-bed will make a mysterious request to see a man no one had ever heard of, transporting us to the foothills of 1960s Africa in order to tell a story that occurred fifty years ago - the story of an irrational taboo and its extravagant consequences. Shot in lush black and white 16mm and 35mm.
Language
Portuguese
Description
Winner, best foreign feature, the 2005 Sundance Film Festival The Hero (O Heroi) is the story of Angola, a nation torn apart by forty years of uninterrupted war, and now trying imperfectly but courageously to piece itself back together. It is also the story of a city, Luanda, like so many in the Third World, trying to absorb the millions of people displaced by civil strife and global economic change. After a thirteen year national liberation struggle...
Language
Portuguese
Description
Like every morning, Madalena makes bread for Antonio's old coffee shop. Like every day, she crosses the railways where no trains have passed for years; she cleans up the gate of the locked cemetery, and listens to the priest's sermon before sharing lunch with the other old villagers. Clinging to the image of her dead husband and living in her memories, Madalena is awakened by the arrival of Rita, a young photographer who is arriving in the ghost village...
Language
Portuguese
Description
Elvis and Madona is a romantic comedy that deals with an unusual subject in a delicate and realistic way: a love story between young lesbian Elvis and a transvestite Madona. The story takes place in Copacabana, neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. The screenplay comprehends a full array of human types and, by following the journey of both protagonists, illustrates the conflicts generated by the evolution of behavior and custom. It is a modern and agile...
Language
Portuguese
Description
Four characters struggle with the disillusionment of the revolutionary generation in post-independence Guinea-Bissau. In Udju Azul di Yonta, the most compelling character is Vicente, a disenchanted hero of the independence struggle who has only grudgingly adapted himself to post-revolutionary society. He is a figure with whom many disappointed Western '60s activists will identify. As "Comrade Boss" of a fish warehouse, he continues to work for the...
Language
Portuguese
Description
A feature film about soccer dreams weighs the pros and cons of pursuing ambitions abroad or acceptance of life on the isolated islands of Cape Verde. Fintar O Destino has the distinction of being the Library of African Cinema's first sports film - but a sports film with a decidedly African twist. It is the story, familiar from countless Hollywood movies and therefore easily accessible to American audiences, of an over the hill sports hero who holds...
Language
Portuguese
Description
A documentary film about the taboos, stereotypes, and struggles of black actors in Brazilian television "soaps. " Based on his own memories and on a sturdy body of research evidence, the director analyzes race relations in Brazilian soap operas, calling attention to their likely influence on Black people's identity-forming processes.
Language
Portuguese
Description
The residents of Rio de Janeiro's largest slum seek justice for a local man they believe has been murdered by the police. In the face of brutal oppression, together they start a protest movement that will change the course of Brazilian history. This project is heavily accoladed, winning best film at the Sydney Film Festival, a Director’s Guild Award and two Australian Academy Awards. Originally released in 2016, the film has fresh interest right...
Language
Portuguese
Description
This fictional account of the closing months of the war against the Portuguese and the consolidation of the independent West African nation of Guinea-Bissau both reflects and critiques the revolutionary process. Mortu Nega, as its title implies, is a unique kind of elegy - not so much to the victims of the liberation struggle as to its survivors. Like the Zimbabwean film Flame (1996) and Gomes' own more disillusioned second feature Udju Azul di Yonta...
Language
Portuguese
Description
Who is Jair Bolsonaro and how he became the president of the sixth most populous country in the world? "OUR FLAG WILL NEVER BE RED" answers this question by examining the influence of the Brazilian media in the socio-political events that took place from 2013 to 2019. Brazil has "6 berlusconis" that together control 90% of the national audience in all types of media. According to the interviewed, the Berlusconis were responsible for one of the greatest...
12) Threshold
Language
Portuguese
Description
An intimate autobiographical documentary from Brazilian filmmaker Coraci Ruiz following the revelation that her eldest teenager Noah, then 15-years-old, was having doubts about their gender identity. Realizing that she would have to deal with a new and highly challenging theme, she started filming with Noah's permission. This was her way of approaching her son and trying to understand what was happening. From 2016 to 2019 she interviews Noah, addressing...
13) Building Bridges
Language
Portuguese
Description
BUILDING BRIDGES is a film that pursues a possible relationship between Heloisa, the filmmaker, and her father, an engineer who had his moment of glory during the Brazilian military dictatorship. Projections and maps become the first bridges to connect with the past. However, it is the inescapable present that really strikes Heloisa and Alvaro as they position themselves on opposite sides of the troubling political situation of Brazil.
14) Chão
Language
Portuguese
Description
Since 2015, the Landless Workers Movement has been occupying an indebted sugarcane factory’s land to press for its redistribution through land reform. Grandma, P.C. and their encamped fellows struggle to conquer a small share of land where they can settle down and live a self-sustainable life, growing agro-ecological crops in a newly knit peasant community they draw in their dreams.
Language
Portuguese
Description
The utopian city of Brasilia is in transition more than half a century later. What is it like to live in someone else’s idea? A meditation on living in one of the most planned cities on earth. Brasília is unlike any other: a concrete utopia designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer and urbanist Lúcio Costa that spawned out of the desert. Featuring a haunting, intimate score and images that take us deep into the city, this documentary brings a human...
16) Obscuro Barroco
Language
Portuguese
Description
Trans icon Luana Muniz explores gender and metamorphosis in this visually stunning, poetic documentary. Official Selection at the **Berlin International Film Festival**.
18) Maria Luiza
Language
Portuguese
Description
MARIA LUIZA da Silva is the first transgender in the history of the Brazilian Armed Forces. After 22 years of work in the military, she retired due to disability. The film explores the complex barriers she faced and her path of affirmation as a trans, military and Catholic woman.
Language
Portuguese
Description
While the #MeToo Movement united sexual harassment victims throughout the world, this crucial documentary explicitly illustrates how the participation of women in open urban spaces is marked by insecurity. The film explores the public space as a place of violence—especially sexual harassment—and analyzes how campaigns promoted by activists and feminists have changed power relationships between men and women in the streets of Brazil.