Chico Barney

Tereza is a single mother who juggles teaching dance and caring for her daughter, Pina, with help only from her elderly father. Her life is turned upside down when her daughter joins a children's talent show. Pina wants to reach the finals in Rio de Janeiro, hoping to return to her hometown. As they rehearse, the girl reignites dreams from her mother's past.

This documentary takes a deep dive into the history of Brazilian broadcast television, focusing on the decades when the pursuit of the number one spot in the ratings pushed every ethical boundary. Through a detailed analysis and interviews with people who experienced it behind the scenes, whether as viewers or industry insiders, the film brings back the era of live variety shows, hidden camera pranks, the rivalry between Gugu and Faustão, and the PCC scandal. More than just a nostalgic look back, the film questions how sensationalism and the exploitation of poverty shaped the behavior of a nation raised in front of the screen, revealing the secrets of a TV industry that wasn’t afraid to get bizarre to hold onto its audience.

In the depths of the tropical metropolis, where nature contends with concrete and silence is ceaselessly broken by invisible propellers and honking horns, a ritual unfolds. It is not a religious ceremony, nor a convention of medical science. It is something more profound: it is a human attempt to domesticate absence. These beings, simulacra of life, are tended to with more care than many real souls have ever received. The gathering begins without spectacle, like a silent dance between the real and the imagined. These women — mothers, artists, devotees, pilgrims — are not pretending. They believe. At the heart of Ibirapuera Park, where Oscar Niemeyer once imagined futuristic curves for a nation under construction, vinyl bodies now lie, untouched by time. In this encounter, contemporary Brazil brushes against the edge of post-reality.