Samira Carvalho

A retired army sergeant, a police officer and his wife and a drug dealer apparently have nothing in common, but they will unite for a greater good. When people start using explosives to fish on the edge of Salvador, Bahia, this group will do everything to end this environmental crime. But in the search for the paths that seem most correct, each one of them will go through more personal and moral conflicts.

Based on the biography of Luiz Gama, one of the most important characters in Brazilian history, a black man who used the laws and courts to free more than 500 slaves. Born of a free womb, Gama was sold into slavery at the age of 10 to pay off his father's gambling debts. Even as a slave, he became literate, studied and earned his own freedom, becoming one of the most respected lawyers of his time. An abolitionist and republican who inspired an entire country.

Marta and Maria mourn the death of their brother Lázaro. A group of Jews try to comfort Maria while Marta leaves to meet Jesus. The disciples try to warn their master about the dangers of returning to Judea. Nearby, a miracle is about to happen.

"Vista Minha Pele" is an amusing parody of Brazilian reality. It serves as basic material for discussing racism and prejudice in the classroom. In this inverted story, blacks are the ruling class and whites were enslaved. Poor countries are Germany and England, while rich countries are, for example, South Africa and Mozambique. Maria is a poor white girl who studies at a private school thanks to the scholarship that she has due to the fact that her mother is a cleaning lady at this school. Most of her colleagues are hostile to her, because of her color and social status, with the exception of her friend Luana, the daughter of a diplomat who, having lived in poor countries, has a more comprehensive view of reality.

Within a society that reviews its values ​​and paradigms, where power relations are put in check, the feminine and the masculine gain new meanings.

Like any industrious coastal town or city, Rio de Janeiro's port region has always been a hub for the confluence of cultures, nationalities and identities. Since 2013, it has also formed the basis of a research project for filmmaker Julia De Simone. Her third feature-length film – which was supported by IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund in 2014 – shifts away from straightforward documentary and towards a more fictionalised form as it presents the story of Muanza, a woman born in the Kingdom of Kongo in the early nineteenth century and trafficked to Brazil, who awakens to find herself in the present, roaming the streets of Rio’s rapidly changing port region, known as ‘Pequena Africa’, or Little Africa.