The cinematograph machine appeared in Rio de Janeiro within a year of the Lumière brothers' first experiments with it in Paris in 1896. Ten years after its arrival the capital boasted 22 cinema houses and the first Brazilian feature film, The Stranglers by Antônio Leal, had been screened. Brazil's film industry has made steady progress since then, and its output has been attracting increasing international attention.
In 1930, still the era of the silent movie in Brazil, Mario Peixoto's film Limite (Limit) was made. A surrealistic work dealing with the conflicts intrinsic to the human condition, it is considered a landmark film in Brazilian cinema history. In 1933 The Voice of Carnival, the first film featuring Carmen Miranda, ushered in the chanchada, a genre which was to dominate Brazilian cinema for many years. Chanchadas were popular slapstick comedies, generally filled with musical numbers.
By the end of the 1940s Brazilian film making was becoming an industry. The Vera Cruz Film Company was created in São Paulo with the goal of producing films of international quality. It hired technicians from abroad and brought back from Europe Alberto Cavalcanti, a Brazilian film-maker with an international reputation, to head the company.
In the 1950s Brazilian cinema underwent radical change as Nelson Pereira dos Santos, one of the most important Brazilian film-makers of all time, set the stage for the cinema novo movement. The latter was brought into being by a generation of university-educated directors who were ideologically left-wing, opposed to the Hollywood style of production and determined to portray their country in a more direct, raw and demystified way. One of them, Anselmo Duarte, won the 1962 Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with O Pagador de Promessas (The Promise Keeper). In the words of modern day Brazilian director Walter Salles, cinema novo “put Brazil's face on the screen… exposed our contradictions, our desires, our fears, and our convulsive energy”.
At the end of the 1960s the Tropicalist movement took hold of music, theatre and art in Brazil, emphasizing that high and low-brow international culture should be critically appropriated into a Brazilian context. Cinema also came under its spell, and allegory was its means of expression. The most representative tropicalista film is Macunaíma by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, a metaphorical analysis of the Brazilian character as expressed in the tale of a native Indian who leaves the Amazon jungle and goes to the big city. The film is based on Mario de Andrade's 1922 novel of the same name.
The government film agency EMBRAFILME, created in 1969, was responsible for the co-production, financing and distribution of a large percentage of films in the 1970s and 80s, adding a commercial dimension to the film industry and allowing it to embark on more ambitious projects.
In the 1980s movies were not well attended, due in part to the popularity of television. Many cinemas closed their doors, especially in the interior of the country. Nevertheless, some important films were made, many of which were concerned with political questions. Eles não Usam Black Tie (They Don't Wear Black Tie) (1981) directed by Leon Hirzman, tells the story of a strike in the industrial area of São Paulo. Memórias do Cárcere (Memories of Prison) (1984) by Nelson Pereira dos Santos and based on a book by Graciliano Ramos, portrays the life of political prisoners.
One of the most outstanding films of the 1980s was A Hora da Estrela (The Hour of the Star) (1985) directed by Susana Amaral. Based on a novel by Clarice Lispector, it tells the poignant story of an immigrant girl from the northeast in the metropolis of São Paulo. The other outstanding films of the 80s were Carlos Diegues’ Bye Bye Brasil, about a circus caravan with a declining audience, and Hector Babenco’s Pixote, a realistic and disturbing tale of juvenile delinquents in São Paulo, performed by non-professional actors.
As a result of a 1993 law giving financial incentives to Brazilian film production, the number of films currently being produced in Brazil has increased dramatically and there are now Brazilian films being shown in cinemas all over the world.
O Quatrilho (1996), directed by Fábio Barreto, a tale of two married immigrant couples set in Rio Grande do Sul, and O Que É Isso, Companheiro? (Four Days in September) (1998), directed by Bruno Barreto, the true story of the 1969 kidnapping of the American Ambassador to Brazil, were both Oscar nominees for Best Film in a Foreign Language.
Central do Brasil (Central Station), directed by Walter Salles, won the Golden Bear Grand Prix at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1998, and in January 1999 captured the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's Golden Globe award for foreign language film.
In 2002 an even greater international impact was made by Fernando Meirelles’ Cidade de Deus (City of God), a gripping depiction of drugs, guns and gangs in the life of a Rio de Janeiro favela between the 1960s and 1980s. Managing to tell an often tragic tale with verve, compassion and a touch of humour, it broke box office records in Brazil and seemed to herald a new boom in Brazilian cinema. Admissions to home-grown films more than tripled between 2002 and 2003, with Hector Babenco’s Carandiru, the true story of a prison riot in São Paulo, achieving even higher audience figures. In the words of Fernando Meirelles, “our cinema is living through one of its finest moments”.
