Pré-Práxis

a documentary and a fiction about reflecting on "pre-cinema".

Hope Ways

Amid the 2019 drought in Brazil’s Northeast, Madalena loses her mother in a tragic event that changes her life. Alone, she joins a rebellion at the Grajaú farm in Canudos, where a community rises against government neglect. A violent State response turns their hope into sorrow. Later, journalist Júlia returns to uncover the truth, hearing from people like Lúcia, a grieving mother. As Júlia investigates, hidden stories emerge: Madalena's forbidden love with rebel João and Pedro's thirst for revenge after losing his father to political violence. Their paths cross in a tale of justice, pain, and redemption. Inspired by Ariano Suassuna, famed for "A Dog’s Will", this short film is a prelude to "A Pena e a Lei", created by 9th-grade students from Escola SESI Cambona, in Maceió, Brazil. It was screened at the SESI Festival of Art and Culture in July 2023, touching audiences with its emotional and socially conscious narrative.

Deep Throat: When Porn Makes Its Premiere

Deep Throat, a pornographic film directed by Gerard Damiano, a film-loving hairdresser, and starring Linda Lovelace, a shy girl manipulated by a controlling husband, was released in 1972 and divided audiences, who began to talk openly about sex, desire and female pleasure; but also about violence and abuse; and about pornography, until then an almost clandestine industry, as a revolutionary cultural phenomenon.

Wallpaper

We're Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today: 3 Decades of Clerks

A documentary covering 3 decades of Clerks films

Tokyo Phoenix

In 150 years, twice marked by total destruction —a terrible earthquake in 1923 and incendiary bombings in 1945— followed by a spectacular rebirth, Tokyo, the old city of Edo, has become the largest and most futuristic capital in the world in a transformation process fueled by the exceptional resilience of its inhabitants, and nourished by a unique phenomenon of cultural hybridization.

Tower

Four siblings, whose father disappeared during Brazilian Military Dictatorship, report their childhood during the regime.

Notre Dame de Paris: The Ordeal of the Centuries

A fictional documentary on Notre Dame de Paris, produced in 2019.

The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus

For this behemoth, Bressane took his opera omnia and edited it in an order that first adheres to historical chronology but soon starts to move backwards and forward. The various pasts – the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s – comment on each other in a way that sheds light on Bressane’s themes and obsessions, which become increasingly apparent and finally, a whole idea of cinema reveals itself to the curious and patient viewer. Will Bressane, from now on, rework The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus when he makes another film? Is this his latest beginning? Why not, for the eternally young master maverick seems to embark on a maiden voyage with each and every new film!

Holding Up the Sky

"When the shamans stop dancing and life in the rainforest loses its balance, the sky will collapse and come to crush everything." This wisdom is passed down from generation to generation by the Yanomami of Brazil. But gold miners are polluting the rivers, shamans are dying, the rainforest is disappearing and the earth is getting hotter. Davi Kopenawa, a tribal leader and spokesman for the Yanomami, has been fighting relentlessly against the colonization of his land for 40 years. He warns Westerners that when the sky collapses, they too will be crushed. Why don't they listen? Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

L'Odyssée des Jeux olympiques

Ditadura Reservada

Blériot, l'impossible traversée

A look back at an incredible challenge that combines human adventure and historic exploit. In 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel, propelling aviation into the modern era. 110 years on, a team of enthusiasts attempt a mad-cap gamble, to fly a replica Blériot XI.

Dos Antigos aos Filhos do Amanhã

Victor Hugo, un siècle en révolutions

The Secrets of Coca-Cola

The Lie Detector

In the first decades of the 20th century, when life was being transformed by scientific innovations, researchers made a thrilling new claim: they could tell whether someone was lying by using a machine. Popularly known as the “lie detector,” the device transformed police work, seized headlines and was extolled in movies, TV and comics as an infallible crime-fighting tool. Husbands and wives tested each other’s fidelity. Corporations routinely tested employees’ honesty and government workers were tested for loyalty and “morals.” But the promise of the polygraph turned dark, and the lie detector too often became an apparatus of fear and intimidation. Written and directed by Rob Rapley and executive produced by Cameo George, The Lie Detector is a tale of good intentions, twisted morals and unintended consequences.

The Wings of the Fame

It is the epic of the heroes of the first century of aviation, since the flight of the first plane on December 17, 1903 until today. A striking collection of portraits of outstanding men and women like Louis Blériot, the first to cross the Channel, to Lindbergh who crossed the Atlantic and Amelia Earhart and many more...

Hispanoamérica: Song of Life and Hope

A renewed and truthful vision of how Spanish America was born and prospered, an epic story developed over more than three hundred years, that of those who bequeathed to humanity an immense architectural, sculptural, pictorial, literary and musical heritage.

From the Atoms to the Stars

An incredible travel through space and time between the walls of the Paris Observatory, which is celebrating its 350th birthday. Place of discoveries such as speed of light or Neptune’s existence, it is still today one of the oldest operating observatories and the greatest hub in the world for astronomy and astrophysics researches, second only to Harvard.