Preceded by short: PixadorZabat's unblinking triptych Zona Oeste, part of his Carioca Portraits series, brings us the outlaw life of a Rio favela. The first episode features four teen toughs from a gang called The Red Commando who live "on the right side of the wrong life." Anonymous behind ski masks, they mug before the camera, brandishing .38s and a "long gun," an AK-47. Caught between murderous competitors in the drug trade and equally murderous police, these adolescent desperadoes find their deadly careers to be their one chance at upward mobility. The central segment introduces two masked men who claim to be military police. They moonlight as paid assassins, however, "rooting out evil" for anyone with the bucks to pay for the bullets. The final episode singles out a young drug dealer almost nostalgic for his days as an evangelist. Though a trafficker now, he insists that "salvation is possible from the moment there is repentance," i.e., he can still enter Heaven if he's not packin'. Shot with minimal flourish, Zona Oeste is an acute portrait of that human quality that finds peace in the unlimited facility for self-absolution.-Steve Seid(52 mins, Color, Beta SP, From the Walker Art Center)Pixador (Guiomar Ramos, Brazil, 2000). A documentary set in São Paulo, where taggers, or pixadors, are busy adorning the urban landscape. With a style completely unlike stateside graffiti, Brazilian tagging reads like a cryptic system of neoprimitive symbols. Pixador follows the young writers on their nightly excursions as they search for the perfect stucco canvas. (24 mins, Color, Beta SP, From the artist)