Preceded by short:Looking for Childhood (Aloysio Raulino, Brazil, 1974). (Teremos Infância). Dealing with social questions such as poverty and illiteracy, this film employs new formal strategies to engage the viewer. (13 mins, In Portuguese with English subtitles, 35mm)(A grande cidade). Carlos Diegues directed this poetic story of a young girl from the provinces who comes to Rio to search for her fiancé, and finds him a hunted criminal in a city where gangsters are heroes and politicians are the true desperados. The Big City is a kind of modern morality play-one which, for all its poetry, inevitably comes to a violent conclusion. Perhaps the most fascinating character in this tragic fable is Calunga, a cheerful young black man who acts as our guide to Rio and the story-but whose carefree role of mestre de jogo can't help but implicate him in the tragedy. "Cinema is not the reproduction of reality," said Cinema Nôvo co-founder Diegues. "It implies the creation of a parallel, alternative and verisimilar universe. This verisimilitude nourishes itself more on the spirit and ideology of the spectators than on their daily experience."