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>>BRAZILIAN FILM FESTIVAL Weds July 8 - Sun July 12

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>>SUMMER OF SOUND: MUSIC ON FILM July 24 - August 18

BRAZILIAN FILM FESTIVAL 09
July 8-12

After last year's sell-out success, the Vancity Theatre is pleased to welcome back the Brazilian Film Festival for the second in what we hope will become an annual event. Presenting the best of new Brazilian cinema, the festival brings us eight features (four dramas and four documentaries) six animated short films, guest filmmakers and great company.

Opening night film VERONICA (July 8, 6.30 & 8.45) is a drama about a disillusioned and stressed public school teacher in an underprivileged neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. Everything changes when one of her students stays behind after school hours. While esteemed director Bruno Barreto's LAST STOP 174 (July 9, 8.45) recounts the true life story of Sandro do Nascimento, who hijacked a bus and kept a group of hostages for several hours.

ENCHANTED WORLD (July 9, 6.30) explores the relationship between poetry and music, encompassing country music, rap, Bossa Nova and Tropicalia – with contributions from Tom Zé, Zélia Duncan, Dorival Caymmi, Caetano Veloso and Tom Jobim, among many others, while FAVELA ON BLAST (July 10, 8.45) shows the culture of funk carioca, a musical rhythm that merges the American electronic funk from the 1980s with several Brazilian sounds, baile funk, with its roots in the shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro, and funk carioca.

In ROMANCE (July 10, 6.30) a theatre actor-director (Wagner Moura) falls in love with the actress in his staging of Tristan & Isolde (producer Paula Lavigne will be in attendance). And CINDERELLAS, WOLVES AND ONE ENCHANTED PRINCE (July 11, 6.30) is a hard-hitting documentary about sex trafficking. Adriana Dutra's Closing night film SMOKING I WAIT (July 12, 6.30, 9.00) tackles a smoker's resolution to quit.

Scroll down for the full schedule and film descriptions. Click on a film to see more info + buy tickets.

VERONICA
Weds July 8 // 6:30 & 8:45 PM

Director: Maurício Farias // Brazil 2008 // 90 min // 35mm // BUY TICKETS

Veronica is a public school teacher and is going through difficult times. After more than 10 years working under deprived conditions in a school, in an underprivileged neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, she doesn't want to keep on teaching. Nevertheless, she doesn't have enough resources to cover the medical bills of her ailing mother, who is in a public hospital. Veronica lives in a small apartment, never had children and feels alone, divorced from a policeman that still loves her, but with whom she has no plans for reconciliation. Everything changes when one of her students is left at school beyond schools hours. Both will get caught up in a web of action that will grab the audience's attention until the end...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

ENCHANTED WORD
Thurs July 9 // 6:30 pm

Director: Helena Solberg // Brazil 2008 // 86 min // Digital // BUY TICKETS

Enchanted Word is a documentary that travels within Brazil's music history, analyzing the relationship between poetry and music. From country music to rap, from Bossa Nova to Tropicalia, Enchanted Word guides us throughout this journey, until we arrive to the present time through a series of testimonies from prominent names of Brazilian culture, musical performances and a surprising comprehensive research of images...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
CANON FOR 3 WOMEN
Dir: Carlos Eduardo Nogueira // Animation // Brazil 2008 // 9min // Digital
Three fetish women, a stewardess, a nurse and a secretary follow their daily routines, which include sexual harassment and the final return to their loving husbands.

LAST STOP 174
Thurs July 9 // 8:45 PM

Director: Bruno Barreto // Brazil 2009 // Documentary // 107min// BUY TICKETS

Last Stop 174 recounts the story of Sandro do Nascimento, a young man that loved to rap, kiss, glance at the Christ Redeemer and wished to visit Copacabana. After witnessing the murder of his mother, Sandro moved to his aunt's house, from where he ran away and ended living in the streets. At the same time, Marisa searches for her kidnapped newborn baby, who was taken by the drug lord in her community. The stories intertwine and culminate in the now historic hijacking of bus line 174. On June 12 th 2000, Sandro kept for hours a group of hostages inside a bus across Parque Lage, located in the Jardim Botânico, a middle-class neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. A huge police action was organized and resulted in two deaths, Sandro being one of them...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
THE ISLAND
Dir: Alê Camargo // Animation // Brazil 2008 // 9 min
The Island tells the story of Edu, a Young man that gets isolated in a great metropolis. The movies shows the problems and dificulties of living in a big city in a funny way. A Place where things are not always as they seem and daily acions, such as crossing a Road may be trickier than you think.

ROMANCE
Fri July 10 // 6:30 PM

Director: Guel Arraes // Brazil 2008 // 100 min // Digital // Cast: Wagner Moura, Letícia Sabatella, Andréa Beltrão, Marco Nanini // BUY TICKETS

Pedro, theatre actor and director, falls in love with Ana, the actress with which he is staging “Tristan & Isolda”. Backstage, the couple has to overcome the obstacles of a modern-day relationship: passion, jealousy, routine… Is it possible to have a happy and reciprocal love? Before they can reach a conclusion, Pedro and Ana will have their love stirred by her success, she becomes a TV star, thanks to the work of her manager Fernanda. This will allow the entry of new man in Ana's life, with who she'll share not only screen time but her love...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
THE DWARF THAT BECAME A GIANT
Dir: Marão // Brazil 2008 // Animation // Digital // 10 min
The unlikely – but real – story about the dwarf that became a giant.

FAVELA ON BLAST
Fri July 10 // 8:45 PM

Director: Leandro HBL and Wesley Pentz (DJ Diplo) // Brazil 2008 // 80 min // Digital // BUY TICKETS

Favela on Blast is a documentary that shows the culture of funk carioca, a musical rhythm that merges the American electronic funk from the 1980s with several Brazilian sounds. Probably one of the most interesting musical movements in the world, the baile funk , has its roots in one of the most violent and poor places, the shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro. The funk carioca brings its own twist to the bombastic rhythms of Miami's American bass, loops and samba beat mixed to powerful rap vocals in colloquial Brazilian...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
EARTH
Dir: Sávio Leite // Brazil 2008 // Animation // Digital // 5 min
Ordinary things happen to extraordinary people.

CINDERELLAS, WOLVES AND ONE ENCHANTED PRINCE
Sat July 11 // 6:30 PM

Director: Joel Zito Araújo // Brazil 2009 // 107 min // Digital // BUY TICKETS

900,000 people are trafficked through international borders every year with a single purpose: sexual exploitation. However, even with all the struggles and dangers, young Brazilian women still believe in the possibility of changing their lives and finding their enchanted prince as they submerge into the world of sex tourism. Only a tiny minority ever manages to find a soul mate and get married. The film journeys from the Northeast of Brazil to Berlin seeking to understand the sexual, racial, and power imaginary of the young Cinderellas from the south and the wolves from the north...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
DWELLERS OF 304
Dir: Leonardo Cata Preta
A lonely writer is tormented by strange creatures in his apartment. Free adaptation of a poem by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, “Elegia 1938”.

IF NOTHING ELSE WORKS OUT
Sat July 11 // 8:45 PM

Director: José Eduardo Belmonte // Brazil 2008 // Digital // 120 min // BUY TICKETS

That game in Barra Funda didn't work out; that job with Big Guy didn't work out; Antenor's trick didn't work out; that business with the priest didn't work out; that guy that Abilio told me to vote for also didn't work out; that job was a mistake; that bootleg DVD I bought didn't work either; it rained that weekend… But everything is going to be just fine...Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

Plays with
THE FISHERMAN OF DREAMS
Dir: Igor Pitta Simões // Animation // 2008 // 11 min
He comes from a dark world searching a world of colour and light, facing a dangerous and dangerous track when he finally reaches this dream he simply sees it volatilize and be reduced, again, to silence and loneliness maybe due to his precipitation. Back to his real world he again because he needs answers and hope remains alive.

SMOKING I WAIT
Sun July 12 // 6:30 & 9:00 PM

Director: Adriana L. Dutra // Brazil 2008 // 86 min // Digital // BUY TICKETS

In the attempt of quitting the addiction, a smoker decides to study the subject and produce a documentary where she will show her worries and the different aspects of what is considered the most lethal industry of the twentieth century....Portuguese Translation + BUY TICKETS

The film will be preceded by the festival closing award ceremony.

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