Marking a career genre-shift, Manas is Marianna Brennand’s first fiction feature. Developed from a decade of research into child sexual abuse in the Amazon, this was a real story she knew she could only be told through fiction.
All tagged Brazil
After moving to Brazil aged 19 to pursue her love of graffiti, filmmaker Sissel Morrel Dargis discovered another of Brazil’s underground art movements. Over the next decade, she became deeply embedded in the world of baloeiros, clandestine artists who, operating from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, spend months - even years - building gigantic hot air balloons.
The liberal democratic model is at a crossroads. Elections and political unrest around the world have exposed the cracks in our individualist, utilitarian path towards progress. As democracy recedes, people are turning towards authoritarian and theocratic leaders. It is sometimes hard to see this tide turning, but thankfully, documentaries are here to help. Doc Weekly was in attendance at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) to pick out five of the of the most urgent films on the subject, including new 2024 and 2025 releases from Petra Costa and Asif Kapadia.
‘Clinch’ is an intimate portrait of a group of Mixed Martial Artists, struggling together during the Covid-19 quarantine in São Paulo, Brazil - a tricky situation that remains only partially resolved today.
In 2018 Latin America’s largest collection of natural and scientific history, the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, burned to the ground in a what is now known to have been a wholly preventable fire. Director Marta Miskaryan became fascinated by this tragedy which has had a traumatic effect on the people of Rio, not only wiping the building from the map, but also taking with it generations of emotional attachment and fond memories.
At this year's International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), we sat down with directors Rica Saito and Caio Castor to discuss their short film “Batalha” or “Battle”.
