In the 1960s, in the middle of the Brazilian military dictatorship, a film movement arose in São Paulo that broke with the narrative, aesthetic and social limits of the time. It was called Cinema of Invention, Cinema Marginal or Udigrudi, and one of its main figures was Carlos Reichenbach (1945-2012). This avant-garde author explored several genres, including melodrama, porn and experimental. In partnership with Cinemateca Portuguesa and with the support of Heco Produções, Doclisboa presents a rare retrospective of his work. Five decades of filmmaking and life, an ode to utopia, dream and desire.
Retrospective Carlos Reichenbach

Dreams in Life

Fake Blonde

As Libertinas
Esta Rua tão Augusta is a portrait full of irony of the main shopping street in São Paulo in the late 1960s, which was also an epicentre of alternative culture. Audácia! both wanders around Boca do Lixo and reflects upon the difficulties and pleasures of filmmaking. The story of the Cinema Novo and Cinema Marginal movements until then.

Audácia!

O “M” da Minha Mão

O Paraíso Proibido

The Island of Prohibited Pleasures
A session dedicated to Carlos Reichenbach’s love for art, life and those who question the power. Equilíbrio e Graça tells the story of the encounter between a Trappist monk and an elderly Buddhist.
In O Império do Desejo, several characters enter a spiral of mind-blogging relations about violence, freedom and desire.

Equilíbrio e Graça

The Empire of Desire
O “M” da Minha Mão is a portrait of Brazilian composer and accordionist Mário Gennari Filho that establishes a relation between music and life in the outskirt of São Paulo. In O Paraíso Proibido, a successful radio broadcaster is disappointed and bored with his life. He decides to leave his family, and he moves to another city looking for absolute freedom.

O “M” da Minha Mão

O Paraíso Proibido

Sede de amar

Esta Rua tão Augusta

Extremos do Prazer
Olhar e Sensação is an ‘anti-symphony’ of the city based on the perspective of the caged animals at the São Paulo Zoo. In Filme Demência, Reichenbach freely adapts Goethe’s Faust. A bankrupt industrialist from São Paulo falls into crisis with everyone around him, steals a gun and descends into hell in São Paulo at night.

Olhar e Sensação

Filme Demência
Two reflections that explore class conflict, chauvinism, the hardship of life in the outskirts and the precariousness of work. Desordem em Progresso [Disorder in Progress] is a paraphrase of the motto written in the Brazilian flag: ‘Ordem e Progresso’ [Order and Progress]. In Anjos do Arrabalde, three female teachers from a public school have different traumas and hopes.

Disorder in Progress

Suburban Angels
In Sangue Corsário, two old friends meet. One is still a poet, the other is now a banker. In Alma Corsária, two childhood friends publish a four-handed book in a party. As the night progresses, the film goes back in time, passing by several moments in the history of Brazil until it reaches 1950, when the two friends first met.

Buccaneer Blood

Buccaneer Soul

Two Streams

Garotas do ABC
Reichenbach often focuses on the world of Brazilian female workers. In Sonhos de Vida, two of them from the outskirts of São Paulo decide to have some fun even with the little money they have. Falsa Loura, the director’s last film, portrays the dreams and wishes of a group of youngsters, crossing melodrama, comedy, musical and social chronicle.

Dreams in Life
