A Panorama

A NEW VOICE from Brazil is what the 3rd edition of the UK Brazilian Film Festival promises to deliver to its audience this September in London. This year the festival brings a different perception of the stereotyped Brazilian cinema. New conceptions, varied themes, poetic plots performed in combination with a wide collection of musical pieces plus a great range of documentaries exploiting universal and polemic subjects will be surprising.

The Brazilian cinema culture once more is going to establish its potential through this festival, which is going to be a delightful and sensorial experience for its audience. The Portuguese Cultural Perspectives will add an extra ingredient to the festival, paying homage to Portuguese Cinema, showing amongst others Sergio Trefaut's Lisboetas (Lisboetas) which focuses on a new wave of immigrants in Lisbon changing the face of a capital that used to be a point of departure and is now seen as a land of opportunity.

The festival organisers have made a peculiar selection from the latest creations of the new filmmaking generation in Brazil in recent years. Four nights of film that will transport in space and culture. The film fare opens with the award winning Heitor Dhalia's O Cheiro do Ralo (Drained), which is an acid yet spirited critique of the pop culture universe that we submitted to throughout every day of our lives. After the screening a fundraising party for Bottletop, a charity organization focused on the well being of the young people worldwide, and its Brazilian project Street Angels will be held, tuned by Mr Bongo playing the best of Brazilian grooves.

The following days will be full of action, emotion and romance such as the poetic narrative and delicious love story in Joao Falcao's A Maquina (The Machine). Not only fiction will gorge the audience but also the reality of facts and people's lives will be shown in a selection of documentaries. Marcos Prado's Estamira (Estamira) narrates the struggling life of a schizophrenic 63 years old that leads a group of old people in a landfill in Rio de Janeiro. Sandra Werneck' Meninas (Teen Mothers) is about difficulties in the daily lives of four young girls who are to become teen mothers. Joao Jardim's Pro Dia Nascer Feliz (For a Better Day) portrays both rich and poor teenagers who are unhappy with their schools promoting a discussion about the educational system in Brazil. In Onde a Coruja Dorme (Straight to The Point) by Marcia Derraike and Simplicio Neto, the life of one of the greatest recording artists in Brazil, Bezerra da Silva, is emotionally narrated and reveals all the secrets behind his success.

The killing of ego, identity and memory is what moves a group of teenagers into a new conception of life style, resembling Lars Von Trier's The Idiots and all these ingredients are found in Jose Belmonte's A Concepcao (The Concepction), which fights against an organised-bureaucratic-capitalistic society. Finally, to gloriously end the festival, nothing better than two die-hard hippies who are trying to overcome all the swing of flower power days lived in the past. Otto Guerra presents his comic animation Wood & Stock: Sexo, Oregano e Rock'n'Roll (Wood & Stock: Sex, Oregano and Rock and Roll) that is based on the comic strip by Angeli.