The life of Pedro Arcanjo, self-taught mestizo intellectual who in the first decades of the XXth century challenged racist ideas of the School of Medicine of Bahia and highlighted the importance of the blacks’ contribution to Brazilian culture.Read More »
Directed by Cacá Diegues and released in 1966, it also has the suggestive subtitle of The adventures and misadventures of Luzia and her three friends from far away. Announcing, in general lines, the film’s structure: Luzia [Anecy Rocha] left the Northeast and made her way to Rio de Janeiro in order to find her fiancé, Jasão [Leonardo Villar]. When she arrived at her destination, she received help from Calunga [Antônio Pitanga], who represents the stereotyped figure of the “malandro” [thug], besides from his activity almost leading the story events. Shortly, Luzia found Jasão and noticed he had become a famous outlaw wanted by Rio police. Their paths from this moment on lead to tragic implications, being both victims of the big city’s urban violence.Read More »
Ogum is one of the deities of Brazil’s many voodoo-related folk religions. This story is narrated by an ubiquitous folk singer and tells of a young boy whose mother arranges for him to have an amulet bearing Ogum’s blessings which would make him immune to gunfire. The amulet apparently works, for the boy becomes a member of a mobster’s hit-team and then joins with a group of people who resist his original employers.Read More »