New Prints!Brazilian cinema burst onto international screens in the 1960s and 1970s with something new called Cinema Nôvo. Reacting against a Hollywood-dominated domestic studio system that produced escapist entertainment, filmmakers such as Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Glauber Rocha, Leon Hirszman, and Carlos Diegues strove to create works that would express an authentic Brazilian voice and identity. The results were both socially and artistically complex, a Brazilian brand of modernism (and in the case of Glauber Rocha, with hindsight we can say postmodernism). Cinema Nôvo variously incorporated the "tropicalist" indigenous and African-derived traditions, rhythms, and colors of Bahia-the desperately parched but culturally rich Northeast-with the most sophisticated (often witty) analysis of class relations and urban politics. Like the concurrent French New Wave and neorealism before it, Cinema Nôvo was the product of critics/theoreticians turned filmmakers, and vice versa. But Carlos Diegues famously said, "We were making political films when the New Wave was still talking about unrequited love." Moreover, while making art dealing with issues of poverty, social instability, and disenfranchisement, Brazilian filmmakers had to cope with those very frightening realities themselves. The repressive effects of the so-called April Fool's Day coup of 1964 are reflected both on the screen and in the lives of filmmakers, including Glauber Rocha, who went into exile. Cinema Nôvo and Beyond showcases the variety of exuberant, provocative, visually stunning feature films, as well as very important short documentary films of the movement; and it also introduces us to the Udegrudi, the adventurous Underground cinema whose name is a purposeful bastardization of the English word. The series includes films by the next generation of directors, such as Hector Babenco and Bruno Barretto, who adapted the lessons of Cinema Nôvo to their own creative ends.Cinema Nôvo and Beyond: CatalogThe retrospective is accompanied by a 168-page illustrated catalog with essays by Brazilian filmmakers as well as scholars and critics from around the world. ($15, sold at the PFA Box Office and the Museum Store.)Cinema Nôvo and Beyond is a collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, Brazil, and the Department of Film and Video, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Special thanks to the Consulate General of Brazil in New York for its support. The program was organized by Jytte Jensen with the collaboration of Ismail Xavier and José Carlos Avellar. New prints and subtitling are courtesy of the Brazilian Ministry of Culture, Audio-Visual Department; Cinemateca Brasileira; and Riofilme. The exhibition was made possible by a generous contribution by Iara Lee and George Gund III. Additional funding has been provided by Vitae-Apoio a Cultura, Educação e Promoção Social; Transbrasil; Gazeta Mercantil; and the International Council of The Museum of Modern Art. All prints circulated by Cowboy Booking International. Quotations in our notes from Robert Stam and others are from Brazilian Cinema (Robert Stam and Randal Johnson, ed.) and Jump Cut.Saturday January 2, 1999