On Off

Documentary on the life and times of one of the most prominent Brazilian samba composers, Cartola (Angenor de Oliveira).

A Lebanese photographer living in Brazil in the '30s manages to film the band of Lampião, a legendary Brazilian bandit.

Weatherman from a TV network goes back to his hometown, Vale da Rocha, a place in Northeast Brazil, devastated by the drought. He is forced to face the geographic elements and his own memories.

A documentarist is convinced by her son to travel to Brazil's Northeast so she can throw his dad ashes at São Francisco river.

When the Netuno Circus returns to Fernando de Noronha, it brings back a young man with a turbulent past. Pedro is now Zolah, the human cannonball. When secrets surface, bizarre family reunions rival the circus performances.

Vitória and her son, Cristiano come back to their hometown Desterro, running away from a troubled life in the city. She asks her brother Balbino for shelter. The arrival of mother and son brings the town’s secrets and forgotten stories back to light, in strange, mysterious ways. Cristiano’s journey of self-discovery through the town’s ghostly entrails sets him in a collision course with the most powerful man in town: his uncle.

In Pernambuco, a jewel robbery brings together an old group of misfits, with catastrophic results. Watched over by ghosts from the past, each of them will have to find their own way to freedom.

A Documentary about the Brazilian Filmmaker Carlos Diegues and His Works.

This work explores the culture and influences that shaped the creation and performance of the songs on Vivo!, the third album by Pernambuco-born singer-songwriter Alceu Valença, released in 1976. Through this album, it paints a portrait of the birth of Pernambuco’s psychedelic scene, ranging from its visual art and fantastical characters to the initial forays toward Rio de Janeiro and mainstream success. It is a journey back to the 1970s, viewed through the lens of today and the eyes of tomorrow.

In the 1980s, in the city of Recife, a thief who steals film footage — popularly known as the "O Bandido da Sétima Luz" — terrorizes the population.

Documentary about the trajectory of the Brazilian rock band Cachorro Grande, created in Porto Alegre, State of Rio Grande do Sul, in 1999 and imploded in São Paulo, the exact year they would have celebrated their 20th anniversary. As is the script of every self-respecting rock band, Cachorro Grande lived and survived amid contrasts and extremes. From being the greatest promise of Brazilian rock’n roll at the beginning of this century, opening shows for the Rolling Stones in Brazil, to going through open fights that shaped the band’s style and created fissures, culminating in the threat of its disbandment.

A host of personalities reminisce about the life and work of songwriter, lawyer, and congressman Humberto Teixeira — aka "Baião Doctor" — the author of such classic Brazilian popular songs as "Asa Branca". A musical film about the baião, a movement in Brazilian music in the 1940s and 1950s that was later snowed under by samba and bossa nova.

As a toddler, Hermeto Pascoal made a flute from a pumpkin stalk so he could make music with the birds. His love of the sounds of nature has remained with him throughout his life. They play a major role in the music of the famous Brazilian composer, bandleader, conductor and multi-instrumentalist – known in Brazil as ‘the sorcerer.’

Filmmakers Cláudio Assis and Lírio Ferreira go on a journey through the frontier between the states of Pernambuco and Paraíba, Brazil, to show the importance poetry holds in local culture.

Passages showcases Brazilian films in which the utilisation of artforms and media such as literature, painting, theatre, music, photography, radio and television, functions as a 'passage' to political and social reality.