Macunaima

A legendary film that both closes the chapter of Cinema Novo and surpasses it in formal exuberance and ambition in portraying Brazil as a vast country of many races and cultures. This “film about a Brazilian devoured by Brazil” achieved remarkable international success. Macunaima, a figure drawn from Indigenous legends, embodies the myth of an ambivalent being searching for himself between good and evil. He exists simultaneously in past and present, city and countryside, jungle and southern heat, earth and sky. His life is chaotic: he indulges in idleness yet fights giants and challenges social conventions. Born Black, he suddenly becomes white – and even a racist. Sentimental yet cynical, naive yet cunning, selfish yet generous, he seems to have no stable character at all. Driven by impulse, he constantly searches for his own identity.

Piotr Kobus

Joaquim Pedro de Andrade (1932–1988) – Brazilian film director and screenwriter. He came from a family of writers and politicians. He studied at the IDHEC film school in Paris and later in England and the United States. Andrade created one of the most important filmographies in Brazilian cinema, comprising fourteen films. The best known among them is Macunaima, which brought him numerous awards. Throughout his career he won prizes at festivals in Brazil and around the world, and retrospectives of his work were organised both during his lifetime and after his death. He died at the age of 56 while preparing an adaptation of the epic novel Casa-Grande, Senzala & Cia. He was one of the leading figures of Brazil’s Cinema Novo movement.

Mañana

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