Homage to Brazil at Cannes Classics

Each year, the Festival de Cannes selectsa country and celebrates its films and customs. This year, the honour falls to Brazil, represented in particular at  Cannes Classics by Eduardo Coutinho and his film Cabra Marcado Para Morrer.

In Brazil, Eduardo Coutinho ranks among the great documentary film makers. From the favelas of Rio to the middle classes of Copacabana and the workers of Sao Paulo, he examines the human realities of his country and his films set out to encounter people in a spirit which shuns both connivance and arrogance.

In the 1960s, for Cabra Marcado Para Morrer, he headed into the North-East of the country and took an interest in the struggles of the peasant leagues. Shooting was interrupted in 1964 with the military coup d’Etat of Marshall Branco. Twenty years later, he retrieved the original rushes and again began again on the film,. Released in 1975, Cabra Marcado Para Morrer follows the story of João Pedro Teixeira, a peasant leader assassinated in 1962, through the testimonies and stories of those who knew this fighter against dictatorship.

TK

The film screens on Tuesday 22 May at 5.30 pm, Salle Buñuel.