Afternoon Woman

André, a teenager, lives in an industrial town in Brazil near an old aluminum factory. One day, a factory worker, Cristiano, suffers an accident. Asked to go to Cristiano’s house to pick up clothes and documents, André stumbles on a notebook, and it’s here that Araby begins — or, rather, transforms. As André reads from the journal entries, we are plunged into Cristiano’s life, into stories of his wanderings, adventures, and loves.

Juninho, Menor, Neguinho, Adilson and Eldo are young residents of the Bairro Nacional, outskirts of Contagem, in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Divided between work and fun, crime and hope, each will have to find ways of overcoming difficulties and taming the tiger inside their veins.

One night seven years ago, Rafael came home after work and discovered that people he did not know had come looking for him. He immediately fled, without looking back. From that moment on, his life changed, as if that night had never ended. One evening, around an improvised fire near a factory, he decides to confide his journey to a stranger. Rafael’s intimate account meets the collective testimony of an entire nation oppressed by poverty, police repression and institutional corruption.

A court order obliges the masked persons of the Festa do Divino to leave with an identification number. Not satisfied, a group of them tries to invade the city hall.

The everyday life of a Belo Horizonte lower class neighborhood.

It is a hot night in Cuba. Elizabeth de Victória, aged 22, is about to make her long-awaited debut on the stage of the biggest drag show in the entire province of Artemisa. But before she gives a live performance, she must confront all the difficulties preceding the show. A ruthless clock counts the minutes to the start of the show and the preparations of other drag queens reveal all the shortcomings of the debutant. Comments about the unknown girl can be heard whispered around the dressing room. The atmosphere is becoming denser as the successive drag queens finish their performances and everyone is awaiting the visiting debutant.

Davi Kopenawa, a Yanomami shaman and one of Brazil’s leading Indigenous voices, confronts the threat of large mining companies encroaching on his Amazon territory. We follow him on a journey to Brumadinho, where he encounters the aftermath of the Brumadinho dam disaster. Between the earthly and the spiritual realms, his path intersects with the maxita watimapë—the “earth eaters” — and leads him to reunite with his longtime ally Ailton Krenak.

Kelly, a young teacher, starts working at a public school on the outskirts of Contagem. Idealistic, she tries to push for a change, but ends up going too far. During a lesson, she gets into an argument with Nicolas, a young student. The quarrel brings some learning: Kelly learns that, on the outskirts of Brazil, the exception is the rule; and Nicolas learns that only by tearing down the present can the future be seen.

In Miguel Burnier, a small, deserted town in Minas Gerais, Brazil, a few remaining inhabitants have been trying since 2005 to survive the purchase of their land by a mining giant. Tormented by unemployment, isolation and alcoholism, they try their best to keep their community together and to breathe new life into this village where the world seems to have collapsed.