Girassol Vermelho is a film inspired by Murilo Rubião, a master of Brazilian magical realism, about the journey of Romeu, a man who leaves his past behind in search of freedom. By chance, he arrives in a strange city where an oppressive and pathetic system, which does not allow for questioning, drags him into a series of interrogations and tortures. In this absurd world, Romeo realizes that he has lost his greatest value: freedom. Full of pain and fury, Romeu, delirious, embarks on a new and even stranger journey.
“Nobody Leaves Alive” by André Ristum is shot in beautiful but also distancing black and white. Looking at the Venice line-up, this seems to be a trend this year among the maestros of cinema. The film is inspired by true events that took place in the last century in the “Colonia” hospital in Brazil. Whoever didn’t fit the standards of society, or their family’s perception of it, was locked away, tortured, and killed. There were altogether more than 60,000 victims. Hope dies last, and some of the inmates don’t give up the fight. We’re reminded of film classics such as “One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest” or “Alcatraz”.
In six decades, Teatro Oficina has done more than revolutionize theatrical language in the country: the aesthetic influence of José Celso Martinez Corrêa's company extends from Tropicalism to the renewal of Brazilian audiovisual languages from the 1960s onwards. The film revisits a story that it involves personalities such as Caetano Veloso, Glauber Rocha, Lina Bo Bardi, Chico Buarque and Zé do Caixão, brings together scenic art, ecology, architecture and sexuality, and mixes art and life in the search for a Brazilian based language.