Zimba 2021

The trajectory and artistic imagery of actor and director Zbigniew Ziembinski (1908-1978), precursor of modern theater in Latin America and master of generations of Brazilian actors. The polyphonic montage builds on vast unpublished material, covering half a century of performances, teletheaters and interviews by Zimba, as he was known – before and after fleeing Poland, on the eve of the invasion of Warsaw – and recreates fragments of Wedding Dress , a play by Nelson Rodrigues which the Polish-Brazilian director won a revolutionary montage in 1943.

Ana 2020

Stela, a young Brazilian actress, decides to make a work on the letters exchanged between Latin American plastic artists in the 70s and 80s. She travels to Cuba, Mexico, Argentina and Chile looking for her works and testimonies about the reality they lived during the dictatorships that most of these countries faced at the time. In the midst of the investigation, Stela discovers the existence of Ana, a young Brazilian artist who was part of this world, but disappeared. Ana went from southern Brazil, from a small town in the interior to Buenos Aires. Obsessed by the character, Stela decides to find her and find out what happened to her.

Aperana Street 52 2012

In his film Rua Aperana 52 Júlio Bressane describes the invention of a landscape, the topology of a corner of Rio de Janeiro. The film consists of a series of photographs taken between 1909 and 1955 by, among others, Bressane's parents at and around the address used as a title. These are interlarded with scenes from films made between 1957 and 2005, bringing the total fictional time the film covers to almost a century; one hundred years in which the winding road featured in almost every shot structures the new landscape behind the Aperana, which means 'wrong road'. Rua Aperana 52 is autobiographical, as it is a landscape from Bressane's youth, but it is also not so; it is more a multi-subjective mythology of a place seen through all those films and photographs. Bressane refers to his editing as an intuitive form of thinking aimed at evoking moods which make the viewer the new witness of the fictional landscape. A fiction about a fiction,

Elogio da Graça 2011

Aphasia 2011

Carnaval dos Deuses 2010

Jacob, Mairun and João are 6 years old and are making their carnival costumes for the school party. Ana does not participate in the activity because she believes that carnival is a sin. This situation causes surprise among her little friends who start a conversation about their different religious backgrounds.

Paulista 2009

Three metropolitan stories entwine in São Paulo. Would-be actress Marina arrives in the city looking for independence, falls madly in love with Justine, a bisexual rock singer, and is swept up into her wild, edgy lifestyle. Marina shares a flat on Avenida Paulista with Suzana, a mysterious lawyer who begins a relationship with a male colleague who is unaware that she's transsexual. Jay lives a few floors above them. He is a frustrated writer trying to give a meaning to his life by idealizing a stunningly beautiful prostitute, whom he transforms into a sort of muse. Following the frenetic pace of the city, the three "Paulista" characters will experience the euphoria of passion and its downside.

FilmeFobia 2008

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.

500 Almas 2007

Up Against Them All 2004

A story about the lies, treachery and vengeance of a middle-class family living on the outskirts of São Paulo. Four characters try desperately to change their lives, but are unable to escape their destiny.

Brave New Land 2000

Diogo is a cartographer and artist who is encharged to set the new frontiers of Portuguese Colonies in South America. When he reaches the center of the continent, finds apparently nothing but wilderness and ‘uncivilized’ natives with strange ways of living. But Captain Pedro, the rude scout who guides him through the jungle, involves Diogo in an involuntary act of violence which will tie him in an unusual way to that far away country. At the same time, the Portuguese colonists are trying to make peace with Guaicuru Indians (one of the few natives with horse-riding abilities). But peace doesn’t ever have a low price.

Através da Janela 2000

Selma, a retired nurse, is an extremely loving mother for his son Raimundo, in an almost incestuous relationship. One day, she becomes aware of some changes in her son's behavior. At first, she thinks it may be some girlfriend. But soon she learns it's something else.

Miramar 1997

Story with some autobiographical touches taken from director's life.

Bocage, the Triumph of Love 1997

The film follows Manuel Maria du Bocage, 18th-century poet, as he travels through the world from orgy to orgy and from excess to excess.

The Mandarin 1995

The history of Brazilian popular music in the 20th Century, focusing specially on the life and works of intriguing singer Mário Reis, a loner who, with his special way of singing - whispering and softly saying the words - in a time when singers with potent voices ruled, was in a way a forerunner of Bossa Nova style.

Galáxia Albina 1992

A liberal interpretation of the book Galáxias, one of the most important works by the great contemporary Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos, written between 1963 and 1976 and published in 1986. Bressane considers this work of poetry the Portuguese Finnegan's Wake. The video is a disorganized system of images: an exploration of colors, quotes and sudden inspirations created by the words. A sequence of epiphanies, rigorous in their images. The films cited act as cinematographic scenery, conferring a sense of drama to the movements of the actresses and the readings of the poems.

Sermões 1989

Based upon the life story of Father Antonio Vieira, born in Lisbon in 1608 and deceased in Salvador, Bahia, in 1697. He's considered the first Brazilian writer and one of the most important aesthete of linguistic and of the Portuguese language of all times, a master in the art of metaphor, of verbal relations and analogy. He was persecuted and condemned by the Portuguese Court of Inquisition due to his position against native slavery, against the intolerance to the Jewish people and to the colonial politics of exploration.

Caramujo-Flor 1988

Film based on Manoel de Barros poetry. Story about poet's life in the swamp area of Brazil (Pantanal) and its wildlife; & his obsession with the sea and his new life in the big metropolis in Brazil.