REDENÇàO
Dir. Roberto Pires, 1959
65min, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles.
North American Premiere

SATURDAY – MAY 7 – 7:30pm (Introduction by Thotti Cardoso)
THURSDAY MAY 12 – 10:00pm
SUNDAY MAY 22 – 7:30pm
THURSDAY MAY 26 - 7:30pm - (Q&A with Theo Duarte)

Roberto Pires’ debut feature film, REDENÇàO (1959) is a desperate and moody film noir dealing with the psychological pressures of crime and punishment.

Often considered one of the first ever Brazilian scope films, REDENÇàO makes use of the homemade “IGLUSCOPE”, which Pires designed himself while working out of his father’s glasses shop in Bahia. The film makes great use of its anamorphic format and plays out like a lazy fever dream, capturing the entire terrain of the Salvador coast while the grim news of a psychopathic murderer hums through the car radio.

Screening with:

PÁTIO
Dir. Glauber Rocha, 1959
11 mins, Brazil
In Portuguese with English subtitles.

Glauber Rocha’s debut short film, Pátio, shot in 1959 with leftover film stock from Roberto Pires’s Redenção, is a Buñuelian experiment about a man and a woman who move slowly across a chess-shaped terrace, rolling on the ground, moving both closer and further apart.