Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Watch us on Youtube Join the Archive Mailing List Read our Blog

News From a Personal War (Brazil, 1999); Justice (Brazil, 2004); Socorro Nobre (Brazil, 1996)

Socorro Nobre (1996)
August 3, 2014 - 7:00 pm

News From a Personal War (Notícias de uma guerra particular) (Brazil, 1999)

Directed by João Moreira Salles, Kátia Lund, Walter Salles. 

From one of the co-directors of City of God (2002), News from a Personal War succinctly lays out the battle between Rio’s police forces and the drug dealers who dominate the slums (favelas).  The filmmakers go beyond the cops’ and the dealers’ points of view to get all sides of the story.  The result is an unusually spellbinding hour that’s harder-hitting and more astonishing than any fiction film could be.

Screenwriter: João Moreira Salles, Kátia Lund. Cinematographer: Geraldo Ribeiro. Editor: Flavio Nuñes, Philippe Bourgogne.

DigiBeta, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 56 min.

Justice (Justica) (Brazil, 2004)

Directed by Maria Augusta Ramos.

The winner of six international film festival prizes, director Maria Augusta Ramos’ Justice combines Frederick Wiseman’s cool-headed and clear-eyed portrayals of large institutions or societal systems with the power of a courtroom drama.  Ramos reveals larger issues in contemporary Brazilian society and its power structures by studying the details of several cases and following them through various stages of the country’s court system.

Producer: Niek Koppen, Renee van der Grinten. Screenwriter: Maria Augusta Ramos. Cinematographer: Flávio Zangrandi. Editor: Joana Collier, Virginia Flores, Maria Augusta Ramos, Vivianne Rodrigues de Brito.

DigiBeta, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 102 min.

Socorro Nobre (Brazil, 1996)

Directed by Walter Salles.

Maria do Socorro Nobre encounters an article while in prison about the Polish artist Franz Krajcberg (who moved to Brazil after losing his family in the Holocaust) and feels compelled to write him a letter.  Director Walter Salles document their strange and moving correspondence, the letters of which served as the starting point for his next film, Central Station (1998).

Screenwriter: Walter Salles, Franz Krajcberg. Editor: Felipe Lacerda, Walter Salles. Cast: F. Krajcberg, Maria do Socorro Nobre.

35mm, b/w, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 23 min.