Brazilian films about losers

An adaptation of the eponymous song by Renato Russo, a famous Brazilian singer and composer who in the style of Bob Dylan knew how to delight crowds by telling stories and singing with his lyrics. Focusing on the love story of outlaw João do Santo Cristo with Architecture major student Maria Lúcia, the movie takes place in Brasilia in the early 80s. In a clash of interest, drug dealers and the police conflict with one another,while the end of the military dictatorship in the Capital of Brazil, Brasilia takes place. The wanderings and tedium of a young rocker, who lived in a city still being built, are the backdrop for this story.

A story inspired by the life of one of the most remarkable figures in Brazilian popular culture, João Francisco dos Santos (1900-1976). In turn, bandit, transvestite, street fighter, brothel cook, convict and father to seven adopted children, dos Santos – better known as Madame Satã – was also a notorious gay performer who pushed social boundaries in a volatile time.

Little Secret is a film with three interlocked stories all connected by a single secret that converge to reveal the tragic yet beautiful lives of three families and how hope, dreams and destiny can unite people from very different parts of the world.

Based on real events, and set in Rio de Janeiro, A Wolf at the Door is the nerve-rattling tale of a kidnapped child and the terror of the parents left behind. When Sylvia discovers her six-year-old daughter has been picked up at school by an unknown woman, police summon her husband, Bernardo, to the station for questioning. From that point on, the film takes increasingly sinister turns as it delves into the events that led to the girl’s kidnapping. With plot twists that will keep the audience on the edge of their seats, A Wolf at the Door is a darkly disturbing journey into the extreme limits of the human capacity for obsession and revenge.

Paulo Coelho is the world’s most translated living author, his books having sold over 165 million copies. But he was not always the inspirational global phenomenon he is today. Like the heroes in his spiritual classics THE ALCHEMIST and THE PILGRIMAGE, he long-searched for his calling, flirting with death, escaping madness, falling in love, and making rock ’n’ roll history in Brazil, all-the-while striving for success as a writer. A wild ride through a lifetime of stranger-than-fiction adventures, PAULO COELHO’S BEST STORY is a profoundly moving film that goes straight to the heart of the most beloved literary guru of our time, revealing the most incredible wonder of all: the man behind the masterpieces.

A biography of spiritual medium and author Francisco Candido Xavier.

In a dog-eat-dog world, Raimundo Nonato has found an alternative way to move ahead: he cooks. No matter what social strata this deceptively innocent young man inhabits, he hones his skills and sharpens his knives—and then he falls in love. Jorge's nimble comic fable provides a smartly constructed gastronomic allegory for ambition and survival.

After being released from prison, Dr. Nise da Silveira is back at work in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Rio de Janeirom where she refuses to employ the new and violent electroshock in the treatment of schizophrenics. Ridiculed by doctors, she is forced to take on the abandoned Sector for Occupational Therapy, where she would start a revolution through paintings, animals and love.

A strange black spot approaches the coast, bringing death and destruction to a fishing village. In a desperate flight to escape the chaos, lonely Albino fights for the great love of his life at the risk of his own soul.

Based upon the true story of Olga Benário, the German-born wife of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945) she was arrested and sent to Nazi Germany, where she was put to death in a concentration camp. After World War II began, Vargas decided to uphold the Allies.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1950. In the conservative home of the Gusmão family, Eurídice and Guida are two inseparable sisters who support each other. While Guida can share with her younger sister the details of her romantic adventures, Eurídice finds in her older sister the encouragement she needs to pursue her dream of becoming a professional pianist.

Bacurau, a small town in the Brazilian sertão, mourns the loss of its matriarch, Carmelita, who lived to be 94. Days later, its inhabitants notice that their community has vanished from most maps.

In 1980, best friends Juliano and Joaquin join the gold rush at Serra Pelada, Bald Mountain, a mountain town near the mighty Amazon river. As the town grows in numbers, it also sees an explosion in violent crime and pollution. Soon the friends' dreams of hitting the jack pot are shattered. Winner of the 2014 Cinema Brazil Grand Prize.

During the last forty years, the photographer Sebastião Salgado has been travelling through the continents, in the footsteps of an ever changing humanity. He has witnessed the major events of our recent history ; international conflicts, starvations and exodus… He is now embarking on the discovery of pristine territories, of the wild fauna and flora, of grandiose landscapes : a huge photographic project which is a tribute to the planet's beauty. Sebastião's Salgado's life and work are revealed to us by his son, Juliano, who went with him during his last journeys, and by Wim Wenders, a photographer himself.

After a bloody invasion of the BOPE in the High-Security Penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro to control a rebellion of interns, the Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and the second in command Captain André Matias are accused by the Human Right Aids member Diogo Fraga of execution of prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from the BOPE by the Governor.

Edgar is a young upper-middle class man, close to completing 30 years old, he lives a full life crisis and is in a position common to the vast majority of Brazilians. On the one hand the power, represented by a corrupt state, abusive and absent in their taxes before their obligations. On the other, crime increasingly organized violence became a constant in the lives of citizens in large cities. Edgar responds to all this as a modern vigilante. With the help of ingredients such as technology, counter-information and manipulation, Edgar concocts a brilliant plan, using the greed of their opponents as the reason for its destruction. As the plot unfolds, we know more about the dark past of each character as Edgar fit the pieces together in an intriguing puzzle that makes up the film's plot.

The real first comedy about love.

About the life and adventures of a gang of abandoned street kids known as "Capitães da Areia" (Captains of the Sands), in Salvador, Bahia, during the 1950s.

Bruno is a young film editor who has just broke up his marriage with Regina, and returned living in his mother's house. Drowned in deep sorrow, something very weird happens in his life: people around him are gradually disappearing. But only for him. Some kind of blindness.

A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.

Palermo, Sicily, 1980. Mafia member Tommaso Buscetta decides to move to Brazil with his family fleeing the constant war between the different clans of the criminal organization. But when, after living several misfortunes, he is forced to return to Italy, he makes a bold decision that will change his life and the destiny of Cosa Nostra forever.

In the '40s, three brothers decide to live a great adventure and enlisting in the Roncador-Xingu Expedition, which has a mission to tame the Central Brazil. The Villas Boas brothers: Orlando, 27, Claudius, 25, and Leonardo, 23, engage in a fantastic and incredible saga. Soon start to lead the expedition that opens new paths 1,500 km, navigates over 1,000 miles of unspoilt rivers, opens 19 airfields for airplanes Army, gives rise to the creation of 43 towns and 14 make contact with wild Indian tribes, unknown, as the Xavante, courageous and feared warriors, no casualties on both sides. This adventure allows the Villas Boas brothers the creation of the Xingu National Park, the first major Amerindian reservation in Brazil, the size of Belgium, transforming them into true contemporary heroes.

Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho's thinking, presented through his presence, his daily work routine and his family life in Virginia (USA).

The sierras of southern Brazil, 1963. The son of an French man and a Brazilian woman, Tony is a young man with a profound love of cinema and poetry. After graduating from college he returns to his small town in rural Brazil, to find out that his father had left for good, back to France. Tony then looks for the company of his fathers friends in search of information and references of a lost male role-model. He becomes a school teacher and a male figure to kids, in an attempt to provide them with something he lacks himself. A series of developments lead him to a surprising final lead on his fathers' whereabouts and reasons for leaving.

Stênio, the nightshifter of a morgue, has the ability to communicate with the cadavers that are brought to him every night.

Life in a middle-class neighbourhood in present day Recife, Brazil, takes an unexpected turn after the arrival of an independent private security firm. The presence of these men brings a sense of safety and a good deal of anxiety to a culture which runs on fear. Meanwhile, Bia, married and mother of two, must find a way to deal with the constant barking and howling of her neighbour’s dog. A slice of ‘Braziliana’, a reflection on history, violence and noise.

A group of three youtubers who call themselves experts in supernatural beings decide to win public recognition once and for all. For this they plot a plan to capture a being known to all. It is the spirit of a light-haired woman who died in an unknown way and who haunts the bathrooms of schools across the country: the blonde in the bathroom.

Tito is a shy 10-year-old boy who lives with his mother. Suddenly, an unusual epidemic starts to spread, making people sick whenever they get scared. Tito quickly discovers that the cure is somehow related to his missing father’s research on bird song. He embarks on a journey to save the world from the epidemic with his friends. Tito’s search for the antidote becomes a quest for his missing father and for his own identity.

In Brazil, Akemi finds out that she's the heiress to the Yakuza empire. Just after that, her destiny enters a spiral of violence and mystery, where a gaijin (foreigner) who's been protecting her all this time, Shirô, may have been actually sent to kill her.

The life of the owners of Circus Esperança, Puro Sangue e Pangaré, father and son, who plays two clowns. At a certain point, Pangaré starts showing tiredness and sadness for being an unhappy clown.

Paulete, the star of a daring theater group, is visited by his military brother-in-law, the young Fininha. A torrid relationship arises between the two, and now the soldier must deal with the prevailing repression during the Brazilian military dictatorship.

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.

Inspired by Arthur Schnitzler's classic La Ronde, screenwriter Peter Morgan and director Fernando Meirelles' 360 combines a modern and dynamic roundelay of stories into one, linking characters from different cities and countries in a vivid, suspenseful and deeply moving tale of love in the 21st century. Starting in Vienna, the film beautifully weaves through Paris, London, Bratislava, Rio, Denver and Phoenix into a single, mesmerizing narrative.

Lino works as an entertainer at children's parties, but he can't stand the way children treat him, making fun of him because he works in a cat's costume. Determined to change his life, he visits a wizard, but the magic doesn't work in the right way, and he wakes up as a big cat.

In 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States and the Second World War was over. Right? Wrong. For eighty percent of the Japanese community in Brazil, Japan had won the war and defeat was nothing more than American propaganda. The few immigrants that accepted the truth were persecuted. Some were hunted down and assassinated - by their own countrymen - causing the start of a new, private war. Dirty Hearts is a thriller and love story told by the wife of one of the fanatics dedicated to preach Japanese victory. Little by little, she watches her husband, a hard-working immigrant, become an assassin and their love story fade away.

Rosa is in her late 30s, a child of the 1970s with divorced parents. She lives with her own family in São Paulo. Overwhelmed by an eruption of individual passions, lies and the expectations of three generations, she tries to discover who she really is.

After being a victim of rape within their own home, Diana chooses to keep the trauma secret. Mario, her husband, also has something to hide. The silence takes the couple's account over the day turns gradually into a peculiar form of violence.

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.

1942, in the middle of Northeastern Brazil, two very different men meet along the road: Johan, an aspirin salesman avoiding the German draft, and Ranulpho, a rural Brazilian seeking escape from the drought.

Pierre is seventeen and in the middle of puberty. He plays in a band, has sex at parties and secretly tries on women’s clothing and lipstick in front of a mirror. Ever since his father’s death, his mother Aracy has looked after him and his younger sister Jacqueline, spoiling them both. But when he discovers that she stole him from a hospital when he was a new born baby, Pierre’s life changes dramatically. In her new film, director Anna Muylaert explores the mother-child relationship through the eyes of a rebellious son whose whole world unravels overnight.

Cowherd Manoel and his wife are on the run in the drought-plagued and violent Brazilian badlands of 1940 after he kills a rich grazier. Moving credulously from one allegiance to another, they finally learn that the land belongs neither to God nor the Devil, but to the people.

São Paulo, 2007. Santana works as a dogcatcher, picking up stray animals. He is a friendly guy, averse to trouble, who has always kept violence away from the doorsteps of his home. One day, he catches a very big dog in a school. Some days later, comes the animal's owner: Babyface, a sociopath ex-cop. The man is furious, considering his dog to be "kidnapped", and demands immediate restitution of his pet. But the dog is not coming back: according to the law, the animal was put to sleep. In a misunderstanding, Babyface argue with Santana, blaming him for his pet's death. From this moment on, Santana's life will be completely changed.

As a privileged teenager living in an affluent suburb of Rio de Janeiro, Jean has little to worry about beyond games, grades and girls. But as his overbearing father drags the family into debt, Jean is forced into a change of lifestyle which opens his eyes to the world beyond his 'casa grande' - not least that of the feisty, mixed-race firecracker Luiza. Cultures, classes and generations collide in this engrossing coming-of-age drama from Brazil.

In 2027 Brazil, civil servant Joana mainly deals with divorce cases. As a member of a branch of evangelical Christians known as the Divino Amor group, she uses her position to offer a kind of physical therapy to couples who want to separate. Although Joana and her husband Danilo regularly consummate their marriage, neither her constant prayers nor any other methods of assistance seem to be able to fulfill their desire for a child.

Fluffy, Jimmy Five's pet dog, vanished. He develops an infallible plan to rescue the little dog, but, he will need help from his faithful friends: Monica, Maggy and Smudge. Together, they will face challengers and live incredible adventures to get Fluffy back home.

Elio Perlman is spending the summer with his family at their vacation home in Lombardy, Italy. When his father hires a handsome doctoral student, the curious 17-year-old finds himself developing a growing attraction to the young man.

The film narrates the love between Janaína and a native warrior who, when dying, takes the form of a bird. For six centuries, the story of the couple survives through four stages in the history of Brazil: 1500, when the country was discovered by the Portuguese explorers, 1800, in events during slavery; 1970, during the high point of the military dictatorship, and 2096, when there will be a war over water.