O Porto de Santos

São Paulo, May 1978. Three slates compete for the leadership of the Metalworkers' Union of São Paulo, the largest in Latin America, with 300,000 associate workers, and presided over by a platoon since the military coup of 1964. In the midst of the Union electoral campaign, the first workers' strikes that would change the country began. Braços Cruzados, Máquinas Paradas reveals, in an engaging narrative, the Brazilian trade union structure of fascist inspiration.

Arnulfo Silva, a former abandoned child, retells his childhood difficulties living on the streets.

Deutrudes Carlos da Rocha, a 24-year-old Brazilian, black, illiterate, is a car washer and lives in São Paulo. Through his testimony and also holding the camera, he brings us closer to his experience and vision of the world.

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

The faces, the gestures and speech of beggars, madmen and revelers passing through the streets of São Paulo. The sounds and images are illustrated with Frantz Fanon extracts.

Deraldo, a popular poet from Northeast Brazil, arrives in the capital of São Paulo, making a living only from his poetry and pamphlets. All is well until he is mistaken for a multinational worker who killed the boss at a party where he received the title of symbolic worker.

Lambusca, a man from the State of Paraíba, Brazil, goes to São Paulo, looking for a job. But he ends up working for a group of fishy loan sharks, collecting money. In one of his visits, the debtor dies. The police then starts chasing him, believing he had murdered the man.

The path of Paraguayan immigrants who drive to Asuncion and then arrive in São Paulo. They are rural workers, musicians, vendors and underemployed people. Two parallel worlds: the Guarani culture and the Brazilian adventure in São Paulo juxtaposed with Paraguayan songs and the Guarani language, spoken by the main characters.

The documentary’s starting point is the discovery and restoration of a rare and unknown photography reel reproduced from a mutoscope film, made in 1901 in London, about Santos Dumont (1873 – 1932). The work approaches historic and artistic aspects from the beginning of Cinema (pre cinema, variety film) and a cinema that appropriates archive material (found footage, recycled films), through interviews, documents, visual metaphors and the articulation of a poetic essay.

On mythical Augusta Street, in San Paulo (Brazil), a journalist who seeks answers for his angst dives into the world of prostitution and neo-Shamanism rituals.

São Paulo, late 30's. Alberto is an intellectual and professor who announces to his friend and pupil Polidoro he won a scholarship to study in Paris. In Paris Polidoro receives a letter in which Alberto announces that he married Helena. Polidoro returns to Brazil in 1945, when there was a strong political agitation against the New State. Alberto invites Polidoro to spend a few days at his home in Campos do Jordão. After reaching the site he is told by Helena that Alberto was forced to travel urgently. She insists he should stay there until the return of her husband and, while waiting, she seduces him. Then, after several days of intense passion, she orders Polidoro to go away and never see her again.

The making of an unfinished film about phobias. Says the director. Behind the screens, he discusses at length (with e.g. Coffin Joe) about the aesthetic boundaries of the project: volunteers under controlled circumstances become immersed in their phobias in order to film the fear on their faces.

A marginal version of Brecht’s piece, “Baal”.