When I Was Alive

Close to turning forty and away from his job as a librarian due to depression, Marcos needs to take care of Baby, his sister's pet dog. Isolated in an apartment in the city center, Marcos relies on the support of analyst Dr. Juliana R., who sees him in therapy sessions. Together, they look for ways to deal with the grief over the death of his ex-boyfriend, Pedro, and the arrival of a new love, Gabriel. Baby, a special hairless dog of Aztec origin, will redefine his relationship with the world of the dead and the living as well.

The story of a burglary and its tragic aftereffects.

“Nobody Leaves Alive” by André Ristum is shot in beautiful but also distancing black and white. Looking at the Venice line-up, this seems to be a trend this year among the maestros of cinema. The film is inspired by true events that took place in the last century in the “Colonia” hospital in Brazil. Whoever didn’t fit the standards of society, or their family’s perception of it, was locked away, tortured, and killed. There were altogether more than 60,000 victims. Hope dies last, and some of the inmates don’t give up the fight. We’re reminded of film classics such as “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest” or “Alcatraz”.

Two years after her arrival in São Paulo, Alice continues her relationship with Nicholas and has begun to look for a place where they can live together. She has also launched a business that produces children's shows, and a stable life seems to be taking shape. But as she goes about the apartment search and shares in the loves and uncertainties of old and new friends, what she observes leaves her far less certain of her decisions and her future.

The passing of the years is merciless for everyone. In the film, seven seemingly ordinary characters lead their lives seeking, each one, what they believe brings personal satisfaction. But, even with different and distant lives, they come closer by the way they guide their existence based on worldly concerns.

Donato fails in his attempt to save a drowning man, and meets one of the man's friends. He decides to start his life over, but pieces of his past keep coming after him.

Clara, a lonely nurse from the outskirts of São Paulo, is hired by mysterious and wealthy Ana as the nanny for her unborn child. The two women develop a strong bond, but soon Clara discovers a terrifying secret about the child.

Natalio Arenas is a hypnotist who can put people into a trance and make them reveal their innermost secrets. But Natalio suffers from insomnia, which hides a secret of his own.

After being a victim of rape within their own home, Diana chooses to keep the trauma secret. Mario, her husband, also has something to hide. The silence takes the couple's account over the day turns gradually into a peculiar form of violence.

After her husband loses his job, Helena opens her own grocery store. Soon, increasingly strange events begin to plague her store, making her question her sanity.

Eastern Cape, South Africa. A lonely factory worker, Xolani, takes time off his job to assist during an annual Xhosa circumcision initiation into manhood. In a remote mountain camp that is off limits to women, young men, painted in white ochre, recuperate as they learn the masculine codes of their culture. In this environment of machismo and aggression, Xolani cares for a defiant initiate from Johannesburg, Kwanda, who quickly learns Xolani's best kept secret, that he is in love with another man.

At Lara's 13th birthday, her mother takes her to a picnic in the park. Everything goes well until the girl disappears, leaving the mother in complete despair.

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

In the city of São Paulo, the routine of gravedigger apprentice Deodato changes when a new working girl arrives at the cemetery. Together, they must re-register the abandoned tombs, but strange events make the apprentice wonder about the consequences of messing with the dead.

A film about the reunion of a family broken by the pain and because of the pain can be reunited. An intense story, told in a soft and sensitive way, showing the search and dedication of a man rediscovering family and the love that unites the brothers, finally forming a real family.