Luiz Carlos Barreto

Searching for Makunaima is a cultural and historical account of the most Brazilian character there is in fiction. The film begins with Makunaima, one of the founding myths of the native people from the border between Brazil-Venezuela-Guiana, first captured in the writings of the German ethnographer Koch-Grünberg at the beginning of the 1910s. With interviews in Portuguese, German, Spanish, and in the indigenous languages Macuxi and Taurepang, Searching for Macunaima reclaims this amazing character who represents Brazil in many ways (from literature to cinema to theatre) and remains relevant to date.

In 1965, a year after the military coup in Brazil, an oasis of freedom opened in the country's capital. The Brasília Film Festival: a landmark of cultural and political resistance. Its story is that of Brazilian cinema itself.

The film comes to appropriate and re-discuss the Brazilian reality, based on the dialogues, excerpts and scenes from Glauber Rocha visceral films and his desire to "remove the masks", from ou third world saga. In this scenario where love and violence coexist in a state of inequality and often abandonment.

A film about remarkable moments in the History of Brazilian Photography, built through the eyes of Lauro Escorel. It also reflects on the impact of digital photography on contemporary society.

Documentary that chronicles the trajectory of the journalist, federal deputy, secretary of state, minister of state, governor and ambassador José Aparecido de Oliveira, who lived with the greatest authorities and personalities from the political, business and cultural circles in Brazil and the world.

This film seeks to rescue the role of filmmaker Neville D'Almeida by using many rare images, numerous interviews, vast archival and audiovisual material.

This documentary shows a country that has lifted 36 million people out of extreme poverty in 12 years.

This documentary investigates the aesthetic, political and existential trajectory of emblematic Black Brazilian actor Antônio Pitanga. He career spans over five decades, and he has worked with iconic Brazilian filmmakers Glauber Rocha, Cacá Diegues and Walter Lima Jr. He was a prominent figurehead and outspoken activist during the Brazilian dictatorship, a period of unrest in Brazilian cinema. Pitanga deep dives into the world of Antônio and the history of Brazil. The documentary was directed by his daughter Camila Pitanga, one of widely recognised faces in Brazilian television and cinema right now. The film is also a poem, and a tender ode to fatherhood.

A deep investigation, in the way of a poetic essay, on one of the main Latin American movements in cinema, analyzed via the thoughts of its main authors, who invented, in the early 1960s, a new way of making movies in Brazil, with a political attitude, always near to people's problems, that combined art and revolution.

Documentary on "Antonio das Mortes", Glauber Rocha's 1969 film.

After being forced into a marriage and enduring a humiliating work routine in the hands of his father-in-law, Zé Araújo becomes the mythical Ojuara, an unconventional hero devoted to debauchery.

The documentary "Depois do Transe" covers the entire process of creating the masterpiece "Entranced Earth", which was released and awarded at the Cannes Film Festival in 1967. "Entranced Earth" charmed the world and won great admirers such as filmmaker Martim Scorsese and the writer Marguerite Duras, who at the time considered a "fabulous filmic opera."

A woman is taken along with her mother in 1910 to a far-away desert by her husband, and after his passing, is forced to spend the next 59 years of her life hopelessly trying to escape it.

Romão, illiterate and unemployed, feels destiny drawing him on an odyssey to Rio de Janeiro in pursuit of a job and a decent life. A family of seven journeys 2,000 miles across the hinterlands of Brazil on bicycles. Along the way, the story explores the inner dynamics of a family facing a great challenge with the courage to pursue dreams.

Memories of a parrot who participated in the filming of the classic Vidas Secas, in 1962, where it was featured along the puppy Baleia.

Bossa Nova is a romantic comedy that enfolds many love convergences and divergences, in today’s Rio de Janeiro. It’s in the city’s “useless landscape” that the lonely hearts of nine characters will cross destinies and they’ll discover new passions. The meeting place for these journeys is a charming English teacher, Mary Ann Simpson, former airline stewardess, who’s been living in Rio for two years, since she became a widow, and the newly separated Pedro Paulo. They approach each other without a hint that their lives will be linked by many characters and incidents.

American couple move to the State of Ceará, Brazil, in the 1930s. The husband is looking for oil. His beautiful wife, Donna, soon falls in love with a rude but charming fisherman. The forbidden romance may destroy her marriage and upset the morals of the small village where they live.

Rich and spoiled kid, frustrated for not being chosen to join the soccer lessons his idol Zico was going to give, asks his father to clone the player. But a small girl smells something fishy going on and asks her friends to help save the Brazilian soccer star.

Fernando, a journalist, and his friend César join terrorist group MR8 in order to fight Brazilian dictatorial regime during the late sixties. Cesare, however, is wounded and captured during a bank hold up. Fernando then decides to kidnap the American ambassador in Brazil and ask for the release of fifteen political prisoners in exchange for his life.

The story of two immigrant couples: Teresa and Angelo; Pierina and Massimo. While fighting for survival in the new world, the unexpected love of Massimo and Teresa appears. They react against family and cultural traditions and leave to a new destiny, leaving their partners. Quatrilho is the name of a card game in wich the player have to betray his partner in order to become the champion.

According to an Amazonian legend, every month, during the full moon, a Brazilian fishing village receives a mysterious guest: the Boto, who transforms into a human to seduce and be loved by women and hated by men. One of her conquests is the daughter of a fisherman, who has a son with the Boto. He constantly reappears to seduce her, and even when she marries, he continues to look for her. This provokes the ire of the husband, who wants to kill him anyway.

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.

Two friends get rich running an illegal gambling business. But soon they start to compete, and become rivals.

Adaptation of Graciliano Ramos's novel about his arrest and imprisonment.

In the 19th century, a country girl is seduced by a young doctor who's staying at her house for a few days, caring for her, and tries to hide the forbidden romance from her father, who disapproves of the relationship.

Romantic adventures of a group of Rio de Janeiro teenagers and surfers.

A military man picks up a Native Brazilian woman and heads to a gold panning site where he has undisclosed business to attend to.

When a pedestrian is hit by a bus, the simple clerk Arandir runs and kisses the moribund in a gesture of sympathy and unconditional pure love. Opportunist photographer Amado Pinheiro witnesses the scene and sees the opportunity to sell newspaper and, together with the despicable and abusive chief of police Cunha, accuses Arandir of homosexuality.

As soon as Mauro, an Administration student, discovers a strong vocation for mediumship, he drops everything to go deeper and dedicate himself to Umbanda, a religion he embraces so strongly that it makes him give up his studies. Determined to open his own spiritist center, Mauro moves to the countryside.

The Caravana Rolidei rolls into town with the Gypsy Lord at the mike: he does magic tricks, the erotic Salomé dances, and the mute Swallow performs feats of strength. A young accordion player is completely enamored of Salomé, and he begs to come along. The Gypsy Lord shrugs, and the accordionist and his pregnant wife, Dasdô, join the troupe.

Rio de Janeiro police investigator Galvão is pursuing two trails, one professional and one personal. While he tracts a serial killer of taxi-drivers, he also seeks his estranged daughter, Sandra, who he had thrown out of the family home when she adopted a promiscuous teenage lifestyle. Lives intersect when the serial killer, Toninho, a young man of unsavoury connections, befriends Sandra, now an exotic dancer and prostitute living and working in the seamy underside of late 1970s Rio.

Jorjamado no Cinema foi feito para um programa de televisão consagrado ao escritor Jorge Amado. Nesse documentário, Jorge Amado é filmado em sua casa, rodeado por sua numerosa família; numa livraria, durante uma sessão de autógrafos de um de seus livros, em um cinema em Salvador, na avant-première do filme Tenda dos Milagres, de Nelson Pereira dos Santos, adaptação do livro homônimo de Jorge Amado. Glauber filma seu amigo com muito humor e carinho. A câmera vai evoluindo lentamente, sem cessar e com rapidez sobre o escritor, seus familiares, atores e atrizes do filme de Nelson, além de passar por objetos de rituais de candomblé que constituem o museu de Jorge Amado.

Solange is a recently married young woman whose wedding night did not end well. After constant fights with her husband, she decides to live through her sexual frustration by sleeping with strangers she picks up on crowded buses in Rio de Janeiro.

In a small city of Brazil, Flor, a cooking teacher, marries Vadinho, a very handsome and erotic man. Once married she finds he is a good-for-nothing who takes all her money to gamble. After his death, Flor misses the goods of the marriage so she marries again with a very correct gentleman - the owner of a drugstore. Now she's very happy with her man, but misses the erotic moments with her previous husband. One day, Vadinho comes back as a ghost to quench her desires.

Many stories revolving around a poor couple who, in spite of hating each other, still live together under the same roof.

A German governess is hired to give German and piano lessons to the teenager son of a rich traditional family, in the 20s. But soon they get involved, and she teaches him love lessons instead.

Brazil, 1594. The Tupinambás natives are friends of the French and their enemies are the Tupiniquins, friends of the Portuguese. A Frenchman is captured by the Tupinambás, and in spite of his trial to convince them that he is French, they believe he is Portuguese. The Frenchman becomes their slave, and maritally lives with Seboipepe.

Fable about the financial and social ascension of a black man in a small town, in the interior of the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and his existential crisis when he begins to believe the world is going to end.

Expedito, after being abandoned by his parents, became Zefa's adopted son until he became a man and started earning his living as an independent fisherman. As soon as he finds out that Zefa is very ill, Expedito runs back home and finds his adoptive mother in agony. At the edge of the bed, a mysterious woman, who claims to be Death, sits.

Father Simão Bacamarte arrives in the small town of Serafim to investigate a certain phenomenon of madness.

An allegory about Brazil's history and the struggle for power since the 1930 Revolution until the advent of the TV.

Year 2000. Brazil was partially devastated by the Third World War. An immigrant family arrives in a small town, which they call "I Forgot." The trio is recruited by an indigenist to pretend to be indigenous during the visit of a general. In the dilemma of integrating into the system or preserving individual freedom, the family moves toward disintegration as the city prepares to launch a space rocket.

A new incarnation of Cangaceiro bandits, led by Coirana, has risen in the badlands. A blind landowner hires Antônio to wipe out his old nemesis. Yet after besting Coirana and accompanying the dying man to his mountain hideout, Antônio is moved by the plight of the Cangaceiro’s followers. The troubled hitman turns revolutionary, his gun and machete aimed towards his former masters.

Adaptation of Machado de Assis’s classic novel “Dom Casmurro”. Bentinho and Capitu are friends since childhood and end up marrying. But Bentinho destroys his life when he starts suspecting Capitu has an affair with his best friend and that his son is not really his.

Inspired by the life of one of the most famous policemen in the history of Brazil: detective Perpétuo de Freitas, immortalized in the annals of Brazilian criminal history for relentlessly pursuing and without the slightest assistance of the Rio police force one of the most wanted criminals in the country.

Eldorado, a fictitious country in America, is sparkling with the internal struggle for political power. In the eye of this social convulsion, the jaded journalist Paulo Martins opposes two equally corrupt political candidates: a pseudopopulist and a conservative. In this context, Paulo is torn between the madness of the elite and the blind submission of the masses. But, in this complex tropical reality, nothing really is what it seems to be.

Originally produced for German TV, Improvised and Purposeful is a firsthand look at the "Cinema Novo" movement (otherwise known as the 'Brazilian New Wave'). Director Joaquim Pedro de Andrade focuses on six Cinema Novo filmmakers working in Rio in 1967.

General's daughter, who lives with her boyfriend without being married, gets in trouble when her conservative father decides to visit her. A friend decides to help them, but things only get worse.

In search of a better life, Luzia leaves the Northeast of Brazil and goes to Rio de Janeiro, looking for her fiance who went first to pave their way. Alone in the Marvelous City, she is forced to accept the friendship and protection of Calunga and, later, the company of Inácio.

In a small town in Minas Gerais, the arrival of a young priest causes a commotion in the conservative atmosphere of the place, aggravated by the sudden attraction this priest feels for a beautiful girl. This forbidden love affair soon turns into an unbridled passion.

A report on Sarney's inauguration as the governor of the Maranhão state. His promises are heard alongside images of the grim reality.

Augusto Matraga is a violent agressive farmer who, after being betrayed by his wife and trapped by several enemies, is bitten up and left for dead, being rescued by a couple of humble small farmers who nurse him for a long time until he is well again. Influenced by the couple, Matraga starts a long penitent life while waiting for his hour and chance to payback, starting a fight between his violent nature, his hidden desire of vengeance and the mysticism and goodness which is also part of him.

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

In vivid images, the documentary-like story of a drover and his family in the northern badlands of Brazil during the drought. A family in the search of new hope and destiny.

Based on true events in Rio de Janeiro, in 1960, when a gang having the infamous outlaw Tião Medonho as a leader performed a sensational railroad hold-up on a train carrying a small fortune.

Documentary about the most famous dribbler in Brazilian Soccer (some say in Soccer's history!) at the zenith of his career, showing classic scenes of 1958 and 1962 World Cup. Garrincha was a very original and talented player, having curved legs. Women and alcohol were his passion, and the cause of his later decadence. After a glorious career, he died in financial misery, forgotten.

Documentary about the most famous dribbler in Brazilian Soccer (some say in Soccer's history!) at the zenith of his career, showing classic scenes of 1958 and 1962 World Cup. Garrincha was a very original and talented player, having curved legs. Women and alcohol were his passion, and the cause of his later decadence. After a glorious career, he died in financial misery, forgotten.