Luis Felipe Labaki

Between 1920 and 1953, the government of São Paulo sponsored the construction of a massive nationalist monument created by the famous Brazilian sculptor Victor Brecheret in honor of the bandeirantes, 16th and 17th-century fortune hunters and enslavers of indigenous people. To this day, the statue’s granite faces hear echoes from the official discourse behind the monument.

A thirty year old boy needs to fulfill the difficult task of distributing the invitations to his birthday, while dealing with the strange rules of his world where children are thirty and adults are people dressed as animals.

'The Private from Odessa' is a portrait of Boris Schnaiderman, Brazil's most important translator and essayist on Russian literature and culture. Using different cinematic approaches, the film depicts Boris as he reflects on his personal experiences —his childhood in the 1920's Odessa, his experience as a Brazilian soldier during World War Two— and on his still evolving work as a translator and essayist.