Iracema (Brazil, 1974); Should I Kill Them? (Brazil, 1983); Isle of Flowers (Brazil, 1989)

July 27, 2014 - 7:00 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

Iracema (Iracema, uma transa amazônica) (Brazil, 1974)

Directed by Jorge Bodanzky, Orlando Senna.

A landmark of Brazilian cinema, Iracema’s fusion of fiction and documentary remains exhilarating today. The film follows a young teenager from the Amazon who heads to the big city where she meets a truck driver and embarks on a road trip across the Trans-Amazon Highway, then under construction. Against the backdrop of this monumental taming of the wilderness, fiction filmmaking becomes inseparably interwoven with documentary in an allegory of Brazilian destiny, progress and identity.

Screenwriter: Orlando Senna. Cinematographer: Jorge Bodanzky, Wolf Gauer, Orlando Senna. Editor: Eva Grundmann. Cast: Edna de Cássia, Paulo César Peréio.

35mm, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 90 min.

Preceded by:

Should I Kill Them? (Mato eles?) (Brazil, 1983)

Directed by Sérgio Bianchi.

Should I Kill Them? is a bitterly ironic and parodic short film by Sérgio Bianchi about the “last Indian” and the appropriate response in dealing with him.

Digital Video, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 34 min.

Isle of Flowers (Ilha das Flores) (Brazil, 1989)

Directed by Jorge Furtado.

Quite likely the most famous Brazilian short film, Isle of Flowers is a savage cine-essay that tracks the path of a tomato to the garbage dump, touching upon all manner of social horrors before illustrating how food that isn’t fit for pigs is then given to the poor.

Digital video, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 13 min.

Part of:

Cruzamentos: Contemporary Brazilian Documentary

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Iracema (Brazil, 1974); Should I Kill Them? (Brazil, 1983); Isle of Flowers (Brazil, 1989)

Iracema (Iracema, uma transa amazônica) (Brazil, 1974)

Should I Kill Them? (Mato eles?) (Brazil, 1983)

Isle of Flowers (Ilha das Flores) (Brazil, 1989)

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