Deadly Cruelty

A three-episode anthology film based on short stories by Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos.

Wanted for killing his boss, Manuel flees with his wife Rosa to the sertão, the barren landscape of Northern Brazil. Thrust into a primordial violent region, Manuel and Rosa come under the influence and control of a series of frightening figures.

In Bahia, an educated black man returns to his home fishing village to try and free people from mysticism, in particular the Candomblé religion, which he considers a factor of political and social oppression, with tragic outcome.

A man and a woman are laying on a chess-like patio. Both are trying to reach each other in the best way they can. However, for some odd reason they don't get on their feet, they don't talk to each other, and the only sounds heard are voices coming from a radio and strange sounds that seem to indicate something's about to happen.

Despite being promised to another man, a young orphaned woman falls in love with man working at the farm she lives in , and together they escape. According tradition in Northeast Brazil, her aunt goes after them, in order to kill them for revenge.

On a same night, five people from a small country town have the same nightmare. Upon the arrival of a pilgrim, the village is taken off its mediocre routine and the characters are thrown on the vortex of an uncommon situation. Each one’s truth will come to light, releasing them of the wicked hypocrisies, fears and diseases, compelling them to take control of their fate and rewrite their life.

30 years ago, director Luiz Paulino dos Santos made a poetical register of the Zoró indians. He comes back to show it to them and finds a whole different tribe.

Um Dia na Rampa (1960), by Luiz Paulino dos Santos, focuses on a geographic space in the city of Salvador and tries to explain it from the social relations existing in it.