Remembering Nelson Pereira dos Santos

March 15–May 8, 2019

A tribute to a founding member of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement, whose fiery but loving dissections of postcolonial society helped put the Global South on the cinematic map.

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  • Tent of Miracles

  • Rio, 100 Degrees

  • Barren Lives

  • Hunger for Love: Have You Ever Sunbathed Completely Nude?

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Barren Lives

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1963
    Friday, March 15 7 PM
    Introduction by Nathaniel Wolfson

    A migrant family shifts from one unforgivingly barren land to another—and contends with similarly unforgiving landlords—in arguably the first masterpiece of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement.

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  • Rio, 100 Degrees

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1956
    Sunday, March 17 7 PM

    Five youth from the wrong side of the tracks hit Rio’s tourist zones in dos Santos’s first film, which adds a tropical beat and heat to Italian neorealism. Banned at the time, it’s now a startling time capsule of fifties samba and street style.

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  • Music According to Tom Jobim

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Dora Jobim
    Brazil, 2011

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Friday, March 22 4 PM

    Dos Santos and codirector Dora Jobim (Antonio’s granddaughter) offer a catchy musical memorial to the master of bossa nova with this blend of archival performances (featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, et al.) and more contemporary interpretations.

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  • Rio, Zona Norte

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1957
    Wednesday, March 27 7 PM

    Race, class, and samba collide in dos Santos’s radicalization of Brazil’s widespread chanchada musical genre. Charismatic singer/cabaret artist Grande Otelo stars as a working-class composer trying to succeed in a rich (and white) man’s world.

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  • Hunger for Love: Have You Ever Sunbathed Completely Nude?

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1968
    Sunday, March 31 7 PM

    Dos Santos’s formally radical adaptation of an allegorical short story about adultery and colonialism was inspired by his encounters with American avant-garde filmmakers like Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage.

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  • A Very Crazy Asylum

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1970
    Saturday, April 6 8 PM

    Echoing Brazil’s ever-elastic political blacklist, dos Santos’s clever subversion of a classic novel by Machado de Assis centers on a small town where authorities’ expanding definition of insanity makes everyone a candidate for the loony bin.

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  • Tent of Miracles

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1977
    Friday, April 26 7 PM
    Introduction by Richard Peña

    Citizen Kane doused with caipirinha and given a carnival spin, dos Santos’s delightfully ribald tribute to the many cultures and races of Bahian society adapts the novel by famed author Jorge Amado.

     

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  • Memories of Prison

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos
    Brazil, 1984
    Friday, May 3 7 PM

    A writer’s time among both political prisoners and “ordinary” criminals is chronicled in dos Santos’s examination of life under the Vargas dictatorship of the thirties, based on the memoirs of writer Graciliano Ramos (Barren Lives).

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  • Music According to Tom Jobim

    Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Dora Jobim
    Brazil, 2011

    BAMPFA Student Committee Pick

    Wednesday, May 8 7 PM

    Dos Santos and codirector Dora Jobim (Antonio’s granddaughter) offer a catchy musical memorial to the master of bossa nova with this blend of archival performances (featuring Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, et al.) and more contemporary interpretations.

    View Details