Joy Is the Acid Test

Collective film with five segments around the works and life of brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade.

For this behemoth, Bressane took his opera omnia and edited it in an order that first adheres to historical chronology but soon starts to move backwards and forward. The various pasts – the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s – comment on each other in a way that sheds light on Bressane’s themes and obsessions, which become increasingly apparent and finally, a whole idea of cinema reveals itself to the curious and patient viewer. Will Bressane, from now on, rework The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus when he makes another film? Is this his latest beginning? Why not, for the eternally young master maverick seems to embark on a maiden voyage with each and every new film!

The miniseries is an adaptation of the novel Tereza Batista Cansada de Guerra, by Jorge Amado. Born in the city of Cajazeiras, Tereza Batista, still a child, is sold by her aunt Felipa to the feared captain Justo. Collector of girls, the captain finds in Tereza someone who is not intimidated, even when she is mistreated. In her warehouse, she meets the student Daniel with whom she falls in love and surrenders. Caught in the act, Tereza kills the captain and is arrested. She achieves her freedom thanks to the intervention of lawyer Lulu dos Santos and begins to be courted by Colonel Emiliano. At this stage, she knows tranquility and security. But the colonel dies and she has to go to the house of Veneranda, the local pimp. All this misfortune happens while Tereza waits for the time to realize her big dream: to live alongside the fisherman Jereba, who disappeared from her life. Close to marrying Almério, a good man and settled in life, she meets Jereba, her true love.

Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold-up on a train carrying a small fortune.

Born and raised in the misery of Brazilian slums, Jorge becomes a luxury house burglar in São Paulo and gets nicknamed "The Red Light Bandit" by the sensationalist press. In addition to wearing a red flashlight, he talks to his hostages in an irreverent tone and makes bold breakthroughs to later spend the money extravagantly. His world is the decadent neighbourhood of Boca do Lixo.

Sônia and her homosexual brother are both believed by their mother to be possessed by the devil. She works as a prostitute in the streets of Copacabana and he’s a servant who falls madly in love with his employer.

A road movie that follows a solitary man as he sets of on a journey to the south of Brazil. The strange characters and absurd situations he encounters along the way present an extraordinary portrait of human relations.

Daniel is a taxi driver who’s married to Adalgisa. When she starts acting in low-budget movies, he forbids her from seeing their son, Joaquim. For more than a decade, Daniel nurtures a feeling of revenge for his ex-wife, which gains strength when their now adult son finds his mother in full professional decay.

Guitarist Lanny Gordin was one of the fundamental characters in the transformation of Brazilian music from the 1960s onwards. He electrified Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Jards Macalé, among others. Lanny reveals his libertarian process of composition and current thinking, embarking on an unusual odyssey through China, his birthplace, and Brazil, the country where he lives.

Isabel is a babysitter pregnant of her own child and can't wait to be a mother. Until she meets Joana.

Jean feels trapped in the logic of longevity that the pharmaceutical industry imposes on him and decides to plan a conscious suicide. He invites Helena to commit suicide to two. She, on the other hand, hesitates, knows that she will live well even if she needs to live alone, but she helps him in his intentions. The silence between them does not reveal distance, but intimacy. These are years of shared affection. Together, they will prepare all the details for the funeral. He dances death while she continues rehearsing life. In the process, the two realize that before the end, there is still a lifetime.

Young directors are filming “The Exhibitionist” in the middle of a farm in a paradise-like region. The film poetically investigates the Brazilian soul, with the Amazon as the center of the world, reflecting on existential issues, the right to sexual freedom and individuality.

Released from the Mental Health Wing of São Paulo State Penitentiary after forty years, the sadistic undertaker Zé do Caixão is back on the streets, haunted by ghostly visions and spirits of past victims but still set upon the goal that sent him to prison in the first place: finding a woman who can give him the perfect child.

Ugly, Me? is a film manifesto made from a workshop for actors called Characters in Search of a Movie, in 'La pa', 'Rio De Janeiro', extended to Paris and 'Kerala' (India). Multifaceted like a kaleidoscope, the characters appear in multi-screens scenes and sequences. The images were captured with different kinds of cameras and Ugly, Me? uses this sign of the variety imposed by independent production as language experimentation. Transposing the boundaries of style, Ugly, Me? navigates in a sea of metaphors, philosophical and musical politics, from Prince Harry to Heraclitus, going through a series of authors like Rimbaud, Brecht, Nietzsche, Bispo do Rosario and Eduardo Viveiros DE Castro, capturing a contradictory and original country.