---   PROGRAMME  ---

Alliance Française

(Free entrance)

THURSDAY, 29^TH NOV

SESSION: 7 PM

Première

(Invitees only)

CENTRAL STATION / CENTRAL DO BRASIL (1998)

Drama, 112’

Director: Walter Salles

Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Marília Pêra, Vinícius de Oliveira

Synopsis: Dora is a retired teacher who makes a living from the letters she writes for illiterate passers-by in Rio's busiest railway station – though she never bothers to post them. Josue is a nine-year-old boy, whose mother Dora also deceives. After his mother unexpected death, Josue is left alone in the big city. Dora takes pity on the boy and reluctantly joins him on an epic cross-country journey in search of his father. Slowly their mutual distrusts break down into a deep friendship. Part travelogue, part neo-realist fable, this film was awarded in Sundance and Berlin film festivals, among others, and received two nominations for the Academy Awards, for Best Foreign Film and Best Actress.

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FRIDAY, 30^TH NOV

SESSION: 4 PM

THE DIARY OF HELENA MORLEY / VIDA DE MENINA (2004)

Biography, 102’

Director: Helena Solberg

Cast: Ludmila Dayer, Daniela Escobar, Dalton Vigh

Synopsis: The day-to-day life of a young girl in the town of Diamantina, Brazil, in the end of 19th Century, based on real life diaries. The movie is based on the novel “Minha Vida de Menina” (“The Diary of Helena Morley”), by Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant, under the pen name Helena Morley. It was awarded for Best Film, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Actress and Best Costume Design in Brazilian film festivals.

FRIDAY, 30^TH NOV

SESSION: 6:30 PM

CITY OF GOD / CIDADE DE DEUS (2002)

Thriller, 130’

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Cast: Matheus Nachtergaele, Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Douglas Silva

Synopsis: Taking place over the course of over two decades (1960s to 1980s), the film tells the story of “Cidade de Deus” (Portuguese name for “City of God”), one of the biggest and most violent slums of Rio de Janeiro in that time. The story of the slum and its dwellers is told from the viewpoint of a boy who grows up there and seeks an opportunity to become a photographer and make his life out of the violent world in which he lives. Eventually, the same slum that seems to be forgotten by God will offer him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“City of God” was perhaps the most awarded film in the history of Brazilian cinema. It received four Academy Award nominations in the categories of Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Better Edition and Best Cinematography, and was screened out of competition at Cannes. In addition, the film received impressive critics in specialized publications worldwide. The France Presse ranks the production among the ten best films of the 2000s. The largest Internet portal movie database ranks it as the third best film in a list of 25 films screened in the 2000s. “City of God” was chosen by The Guardian the sixth best action movie of the decade, while Time elected it as one of the 100 best films ever made in history.

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SATURDAY, 1^ST DEC

SESSION: 2:30 PM

DURVAL RECORDS / DURVAL DISCOS(2002)

Comedy, 93’

Director: Anna Muylaert

Cast: Ary França, Etty Fraser, Marisa Orth, Letícia Sabatella, Rita Lee

Synopsis: Durval is a single man in his 40s who is still living under his mother's shelter. They own a record store, “Durval Discos”, where Durval insists on selling vinyl in the height of the CD era. Mother and son lead a boring and unattractive life, until the day when Durval hires a maid to help with the housekeeping. When she goes away leaving a 5-year-old girl behind, Durval and his mother have their lives turned upside-down. Awarded in Brazilian film festivals in seven different categories, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

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SATURDAY, 1^ST DEC

SESSION: 4:30 PM

NOEL – THE SAMBA POET / NOEL – POETA DA VILA(2006)

Biography, 98’

Director: Ricardo van Steen

Cast: Camila Pitanga, Paulo César Pereio, Roberta Rodrigues, Flávio Bauraqui

Synopsis:  The life story of a samba player who changed Brazilian popular music: Noel Rosa (1910-1937). At the age of 17, Noel was an undergraduate medical student, with clumsy ways, a defective chin, who enjoyed playing the guitar. Despite being a white middle class boy, he used to hang around with working class women and his black fellows from the slums. The samba music came to his life when he established a musical partnership with Cartola and Ismael Silva, who dared him to compose his first samba, “Com que roupa?” (“With which clothes?”). The success of the song opened the doors of the radios stations to Noel, who soon became known as the “philosopher of samba”. This nationally awarded film brings up to the screen famous old songs and beautiful scenarios and locations that reproduce the soul of Rio de Janeiro in the 1930s.

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SATURDAY, 1^ST DEC

SESSION: 6:30 PM

CINEMA, ASPIRINS AND VULTURES / CINEMA, ASPIRINAS E URUBUS (2005)

Drama, 101’

Director: Marcelo Gomes

Cast: Peter Ketnath and João Miguel

Synopsis: Northeastern hinterlands, 1942 - Johann is a lonely German who, after escaping from the war in Europe, tries to start a new life in Brazil, traveling through the arid roads of the backlands, selling aspirins and screening promotional films in villages everywhere he goes with his truck. On the road, Johann meets Ranulpho, a northeastern hiker who dreams to go to Rio de Janeiro in search of a better life. Brazilian declaration of war and the recruitment of Northeasterners to work as "rubber soldiers" in the Amazon would change their destinies. Awarded in Brazilian film festivals (Best Film, Best Actor, Critics’ Special Prize) and pre-selected for the Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film, “Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures” is a story of friendship in difficult times.

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SUNDAY, 2^ND DEC

SESSION: 2:30 PM

TAPETE VERMELHO / RED CARPET (2005)

Comedy, 102’

Director: Luís Alberto Pereira

Cast: Matheus Nachtergaele, Jackson Antunes, Paulo Betti, Rosi Campos, Cássia Kiss

Synopsis: Quinzinho lives in a rural area very far from any big town and has a promise to fulfill: to take his son, Neco, to watch a movie starred by Mazzaropi, just as his father did with him when he was a little child. In this odyssey across the São Paulo state, he takes his wife, Zulmira, who leaves home against her will, and his donkey Policarpo, which is also part of the family. The long journey reveals regional peculiarities and elements from the Brazilian popular superstition. Awarded in Brazilian film festivals for Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay.

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SUNDAY, 2^ND DEC

SESSION: 4:30 PM

ROMANCE / ROMANCE (2008)

Romance, 105’

Director: Guel Arraes

Cast: José Wilker, Wagner Moura, Letícia Sabatella, Andréa Beltrão, Marco Nanini

Synopsis: Ana and Pedro are two young and talented actors who fall in love while rehearsing an adaptation of the romance “Tristan and Isolde” for the stage. The love scenes and passionate dialogues in the fiction are the background for the actors’ relationship. However their romance get into troubled waters when Ana becomes a TV star. Responsible for some of the biggest successes of Brazilian cinema in recent years, Guel Arraes made this film a love story and a story about love, a balanced and inventive mix of comedy, drama and romance.

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SUNDAY, 2^ND DEC

SESSION: 6:30 PM

THE STORYTELLERS / NARRADORES DE JAVÉ  (2003)

Drama, 102’

Director: Eliane Caffé

Cast:José Dumont, Nelson Xavier, Rui Resende

Synopsis: A man tells the story of Javé, a small town in the state of Bahia doomed to be submerged by the waters of a hydroelectric dam. In a last attempt to avoid the flooding, the illiterate dwellers of Javé decide to write a book recalling (and making up) the historical importance of their village. To accomplish this mission, they have to rely on the only literate person in Javé, Antônio Biá – a former postman and “persona non-grata”, who benefits from his knowledge of the intimacy of the villagers to keep his job in the post office. Awarded and nominated in international film festivals (Brussels, Rotterdam, Bogota) in many different categories, such as Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Editing and Audience Award.