Beto Magalhães

Out of the names of twenty cities from Minas Gerais, Brazil, the impulse towards the visual record of the things and lives that are found there. Images that do not intend to represent places, but rather to capture the following of a time specific for certain situations of coexistence between landscapes and people.

Juvenal is a metro driver from Belo Horizonte. Margô, a station controller. Both live in a state of complete solitude – each in a particular way. Juvenal refuses to be alone and strolls through the streets of this metropolis taking comfort by mingling with the anonimous crowd. Margo seeks relief in the virtual world of social networks where she struggles to establish long lasting relations with real persons.

Freely inspired by the work Catatau, by Paulo Leminski, the plot begins with the historical hypothesis imagined by the poet from Curitiba: “What if René Descartes had come to Brazil with Maurício de Nassau?” The film materializes this hypothesis and joins the father of modern philosophy in his journey through the tropics. Under the effect of hallucinatory herbs, he investigates questions revolving around geometry and optics in the face of an absolutely strange world. Known for his famous sentence “I think, therefore I am”, Descartes faces his doubt towards phenomena reason doesn’t explain. René, Renatus, Re born.

"Fim do Sem Fim" is a feature-length documentary that has as its backdrop the imminent disappearance of certain trades and professions in Brazil. Shot in 10 Brazilian states, the film is a dive into the inventiveness and resistance of men in the face of technological and cultural changes.

A film that has waiting as its theme, registering it in its most varied manifestations. The waiting in a queue, the mystical waiting, the waiting for an actor to go on stage, the anguishing waiting for sleep, the waiting for hormonal effects in a gender identity adjustment. The time of waiting is confused with the time of life itself, in a world in which we are unlearning how to wait.

Three lonely drifters follow different paths on the roads of northeastern Minas Gerais, Brazil. A film about the connections between walking and thinking, in which the ever-changing nature of things turns life into a place of mere passing.

Join the enchanting journey as a city awakens, its components harmonizing in a grand symphony of self-expression, where every brick, tree, and whisper shapes its own destiny.

The film gradually reveals the apparently isolated existence of Dominguinhos, a 72-year-old hermit who lives inside a cave that juts off from a rock mountain. The film is composed of long silences in which the hermit executes his daily chores, such as cooking and cleaning, and of images that transcend his territory. Towards the end we discover that silence is commonplace in the hermit’s life, the normal state in which time passes. Speech is the state of exception.

In a conversation between two generations of soccer fans, stories about the two World Cups that took place in Belo Horizonte are told. It was there that one of the biggest upsets in the history of soccer happened, England's defeat to the USA in 1950. A match in which the English believed they had already won, even before playing. The same thing happened with Brazil, in the sad match against Uruguay, which resulted in the "Maracanazo". In BH, 64 years later, an unprepared team believes it can beat Germany. Unprecedented scenes of a group of fans echo the perplexity that crossed the country during the 7-1 defeat of the Germans over the Brazilians, which led to the "Mineirazo".