Transamazonica: A Highway to the Past

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

Paranoia, guilt, misery, and technology in the developing country. A fragmented narrative, distorted frames, shouts, and noises. The Nazis take over São Paulo: prison and torture of revolutionaries, a samurai lost in chaos, locked lovers, a dictator and his bunch. Considered one of the most influential films of the marginal period.

Jorge de Oliveira is an Afro-Brazilian poet who works in a publicity agency in São Paulo. Torn between his rich white lovers and his black family and friends, Jorge's situation serves as a springboard to a discussion about racial issues in Brazil.

Documentary that tells several stories: of the struggle of rural workers in Conceição to recover their union; of Dona Mariquinha, widow of a murdered squatter and her miraculous effort to survive with her six children; de Rosa and community work in the Olaria neighborhood; the peasant Pé de Ouro and his family living in extreme poverty; de Oneide, the widow of Gringo, the rural leader killed by gunmen when he disputed in 1980 the presidency of the Sindicato de Conceição, etc.

In Brazil, in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, in the region of the Rio Taquari, the increasing and continuous silting of the rivers has led to the overflow of waters and the flooding of lands over the years, causing significant changes in the lives of its inhabitants. This has made it impossible to cultivate the soil and raise livestock, a form of livelihood for local families. Member of one of these families, Ruivaldo Nery Andrade, our guide character, struggles to save his farm, through the construction of a manual system of dikes to contain and alter the course of invading waters and, thus, resume his activities and guarantee the survival of the land.

Segment "Prólogo": interviews and scenes with some of the most important filmmakers of the "Boca do Lixo" of São Paulo. Segment "A Badaladíssima dos Trópicos x Os Picaretas do Sexo": shenanigans of a troubled fictional film production. Segment "Amor 69": Actress Maria Vargas is expected to appear nude in a scene, but ultimately refuses to do so.

Documentary filmed in the Jari Project area – multinational enclave, located between Pará and the then Federal Territory of Amapá, on the occasion of the visit made to the Project by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry about the devastation of the Amazon. Jari is the largest known land occupation in the Amazon, and probably the largest in the world, to belong to a single owner, the American millionaire Daniel Keith Ludwig.

Stories of extraordinary lives and extraordinary lands across the globe.

Marquinhos is in his early 20s and lives in Copacabana with his petits bourgeois parents and older brother. He doesn't have a job, he doesn't go to school, he just lives on the spur of the moment, watches TV, plays soccer on the beach by day and goes out with his mates by night. He meets Irene, a 40 year-old woman and they have a love affair that is going to change his life - for a while.

Besieged by cancer and nearing the end, the genius Argentine-Brazilian filmmaker Héctor Babenco (1946-2016) asks Bárbara Paz, his wife, for one last wish: to be the protagonist of his own death.

In 1873 in Rio Grande do Sul, a group of peasants come together to form a community of brothers, arousing the enmity of the rest of the population. They are immigrants from the German region and develop a communitary social model, having the Bible as a code of morals, faith and conduct. The group's economic independence ends up irritating the locals to the point of provoking successive aggressions that culminate in a bloody massacre.

Yesterday, the inhabitants of the Nordeste had to abandon their land for lack of water. Today, floods are driving them out... Deprived of their roots, the people continue to remain faithful to their traditions and beliefs, while progress is imposed by the power of money.

August, 1980. Evandro Carreira, a Brazilian senator leaves his party's office in Manaus to visit his constituents in the state of Amazonas. Interviews with farmhands, loggers, explorer Paulo Lucena, Brazilian and Peruvian Indians and a representative of the National Indian Foundation (Funai) were recorded from the city of Benjamin Constant to the village of Cavalo Cocho. A visit to the indigenous village of the Ticunas and the lands of the Maiuruna people culminate with an interview and the actions of José Francisco da Cruz, a member of the Order of the Holy Cross. Throughout the trip, the economic potential of the Amazon and its problems (corruption in the indigenous policies and the pollution produced by factories) are shown.

Documentary about the Minas Gerais photographer Assis Horta, who immortalized the architectural heritage and society of Diamantina. The great impulse of his career came in 1943, with the Consolidation of Labor Laws, promulgated by Getúlio Vargas. By making mandatory a professional card with photo, Vargas gave the push that the working class needed to enter Horta's photographic studio. In the years that followed, the photographer portrayed hundreds of people. In 3x4 or full-length, many took their first portrait.

Filmmaker Jorge Bodanzky gives some classes to local communties at Alto Solimões in the Amazom and collect the results.