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Editor's Note:
At LAVA, we constantly add new Latin American film and video titles to our web site. Below are some of the titles which have recently been added to our collection. For purchase information contact us at 124 Washington Place, NY, NY 10014, phone: 212-243-4804, fax: 212-243-2007, email: info@lavavideo.org. Our website is located at http://www.lavavideo.org
How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman Get Details and Purchasing Info
Nelson Pereira dos Santos
feature 80 minutes 1971
With English subtitles
A slyly entertaining mixture of anthropology, black humour, gorgeous color photography, ubiquitous nudity and unsettling prophecy about a 16th-century French explorer who tries to integrate himself into the Indian tribe that captured him, but who is finally incorporated only by being eaten.
Purchase Price: $ 49.95
O Boto/Dolphin, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Walter Lima Junior
Feature 95 minutes 1987
With English subtitles
A tale of power, fantasy and sensuous desire set on the beaches of northern Brazil which depicts the legend of a dolphin-man called Boto. On full moon nights women become helpless victims of their desire for him. The hidden sensuality that Boto releases in women represents a permanent danger that surrounds this small town.
Purchase Price: $ 49.95
Black God, White Devil Get Details and Purchasing Info
Glauber Rocha
feature 102 minutes 1964
With English subtitles
This is a story of the social movement growing out of the poverty and misery of the dry backlands in northeast Brazil. It is a dark and allegorical sketch of the human condition in thedrought and tradition ravaged region. When a landowner, Colonel Moraes, beats cowboy Manoel for refusing to be held responsiblefor losing four head of cattle, Manoel turns on the colonel and kills him. On the run, Manoel and his wife, Rosa, join a band of followers of a black Messiah, Sebastiao, who wanders through the backlands (sertao) claiming that only those loyal to him shall be spared on the judgment day. In the meantime, area powerbrokers (including a priest and landlord) hire an assassin, Antonio das Mortes, to kill the heretic Sebastiao and his fanatical following. Manoel and Rosa manage to survive the massacre to tell the tale, and join a band of outlaws led by Corisco, survivor of a famed group of bandits once led by Lanpiao. Antonio Das Mortes is then hired to kill Corisco and his gang. He carries out his orders but lets Manoel and Rosa escape once again. The film endswith a sweeping shot of the couple running toward the ocean. Rosa falls but Manoel makes it to the shore where, as the soundtracknarrates, sea and sertao are one and the same; because earth belongs to man and not to God and the Devil. Mixing European and African folklore and religion, the film reveals much about the culture of the northeast. Nature, in theform of earth, sun and sky, is an ever-present force. The stark class relations of the region are laid bare in the conflict between Manoel and various authorities. The film poses manyquestions related to moral and religious value systems, the resistance to non-conformity by state agencies, and the eternal hope of utopia. Gender relations are also revealed in the tenserelationship between Rosa and Manoel: she follows him on his mad journey, but not uncritically. Director Rocha added a uniquetwist to the film, one typical of the times and yet so revolutionary that he was exiled by the military regime later in the 1960s. Rather than depict Manoel as a poor victim, Rocha has the film gradually empower him, making him accountable for his actions and, ultimately, arguing that each person must carry his own burden. Manoel stops searching for saviours and starts relying on himself.
Purchase Price: $ 109.95
Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Busines Get Details and Purchasing Info
Helena Solberg
Documentary 90 minutes 1994
With English subtitles
CARMEN MIRANDA: BANANAS IS MY BUSINESS is the
intimate saga of the star who captured the
world's heart and imagination. A behind-the-
scenes look at the true life story of the
"Brazilian bombshell."
Purchase Price: $ 49.95
Slave Ship Get Details and Purchasing Info
Anna Penido/David Sonnenschein
Documentary 28 minutes 1994
Dubbed into English
Celio, an ex-street kid from Rio de Janeiro who has mastered Afro dance and the Brazilian martial art of capoeira, trains a group of slum children in the musical theater "Slave Ship". Based on the epic poem of Castro Alves ("Navio Negreiro"), the suffering of the slaves taken from their home in Africa to row on a ship toward a gruesome destiny reflects the suffering of these children who struggle to survive on streets without a future. From the humble beginnings of a school play, the kids are projected for the first time in front of the public at a municipal theater, and finally are spotlighted on national TV for their powerfully beautiful performance. Visiting their neighborhood and relatives, we discover how Celio has helped to save these kids from crime, drugs and extermination, while nurturing their self-confidence and linking them to their ancestral roots.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
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