The first story is “Sentinel”. João Evangelista stays in Contagem and works as a sentinel for drug trafficking. In the second story, “Warrior of the Sea”, he runs to Santos. He hangs out at “Bar Esperança”, a haven for the worst local scum. When someone asks when they’re going to change their ways, the answer is “tomorrow”. João joins the crew, waiting for the day that never come. In “Polignano Amare”, the final story, João run away to São Paulo. His brother goes after him and won’t give him peace. One day, João sees his brother lynched and sent to prison. 2019 presents an allegory of contemporary Brazil, a country marked by continued violence to the marginalized.
Paulinha (17) is an lonely and bored girl in the periphery of Belo Horizonte. All Paulinha wants more at the moment is to hook up with Gabi (18), the prettiest woman from the neighbourhood and her crush since last year of elementary school. Through a fight at the snack bar in which a stranger has her back, Paulinha meets Michele (19), a smart dyke, cool and tatted, ex-traffic dealer and fugitive. A big identification, added to the loneliness that surrounds them, makes an immediate friendship between both.Gabi wants to travel to Rio de Janeiro by an excursion, which called BATE E VOLTA COPACABANA. The trip lasts less than 24 hours and is done in an improvised way by people from the community. The passion for Gabi, added up to the desire to get to know the sea, makes Paulinha convince Michele to commit a petty crime in order to raise funds to pay for the trip and board with the girl to Rio.
In the most dangerous country in the world for the defenders of the environment, Milton Benítez, the tenacious Honduran journalist, follows the trail of clues he wrote down while meeting with Berta the day before her assassination. Helped by Almudena Bernabeu, the well-known international lawyer, he puts the puzzle together. What they find is a plot involving corporations and public officials, that mark a deadly pattern. The film fit together the pieces from unedited files, unsuspecting witnesses and an investigation into the shady contracts that Berta had been denouncing.
Carmen is a free-spirited woman held captive by the world of manipulation and lies. Her tenderness hides the fury of an ocean. Like a rare bird locked up inside a golden cage, she looks for a way out in every single one of the encounters we follow her in over the twelve-hour period the film covers. A powerful man with whom she has a dangerous affair; a doctor who keeps her constantly anesthetized; an alienated woman who refuses to open her eyes; a young boy who feels suffocated being himself; the person she sees in the mirror but no longer recognizes.
Deep True follows the journey of art collectives from Grajaú, a neighborhood at the extreme south of São Paulo city, that promote talents from what they name as "Cultura da Quebrada". After five years of experiencing different paths, they decide that it is urgent to resist the growing conservative waves that are taking the world. They come up with the idea of an unprecedented experiment: the first completely online co-production feature film made by collectives from conflict zones having a fashion parade as a common theme. After intense debates and through materials they found on the web, they elect Palestine and the Democratic Republic of Congo as their partner territories, for their presence in the major planetary struggles from our time. This is only the beginning, now they have the challenge of the language, and other unexpected situations they will have to find ways to go through.
Between decadent industrial sites, shootings and decapitated bodies, dancers known as Soldiers of the Virgin (Matachines) dedicate their performances to God and to his eternal promise of abundance. Celso's one of them. He dances cumbia and plays the accordion. He understands that there's no future but dreams of being a musician. One night, on the verge of death with nothing else to offer, Celso sells his soul to the Devil. A hitman who loves cumbia. Thus it's written in blood: while Celso's alive he will be a musician but each melody will be born from the horror that embraces him. He's alive, but from this privilege, an insatiable desire for power and the fear of losing it will be born. Celso sings to pain and betrayal. The horror is his sentence. Meanwhile, cumbia sounds powerful in the neighborhood and everyone laughs hopelessly. Thus, together with Celso, God and the Devil dance.
The year is 1973. The qualifying matches for 1974 World Cup in Germany are being played. In Chile, political instability looms over the government of Salvador Allende. The national team meets in the national stadium. They must take off to Moscow to play against the USSR in a key match if they want to make it to the 1974 World Cup in Germany. The date is September 11th, 1973, the very same day of Pinochet’s coup d’état. Thus begins their journey that confuses football and politics, one that will end back in Chile one month after, when the same players will play a ghost match with no opposing team.
In Colombia, two war photographers, Damien and Christian -a left-wing French and a right-wing Colombian respectively- struggle to recover from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and war-related issues after covering war for 15 years. However, as they try to find a new purpose in life, violence returns with heavier censorship and persecution, while death threats intensify against them. Damien’s case worsens as his visa is cancelled in what he perceives as censorship, forcing him to return temporarily to Paris. As his best friend returns, Christian starts to struggle with suicide thoughts and destructive memories of war. Neither of them has it easy. We follow their daily struggle and intents to escape death, in a straightforward portrait of one of the most dangerous and overlooked jobs in Colombia: War Photography.
Frontline fighters in Chile have been battling to defend their lands, resources and dignity since October 2019. Catapults, shields, laser beams… They are pushing back the army and the police, who for the second time in history are killing, raping, torturing, mutilating and getting away with it. Juan Saravia, a sandwich vendor, is part of the fight. Head of the Funa Comisión, he hunts down assassins from the past and present who are trying to escape justice. He leads the crowd to the den of these monsters to reveal their identities and crimes to the world. Among them, Juan is searching for his father’s murderer. A Communist Party executive, his father is said to have collaborated before he died from tortures in 1982. It is Juan’s aim to clear his name and confront those who have treated his entire family as outcasts in the name of dogma. For Juan, monsters are everywhere…
Julgamento sob suspeita is about the profound crisis of democracy taking place in Brazil since the beginning of the criminal investigation known as “Car Wash”. Spreading over Latin America, this anti-corruption operation is responsible for the downfall of the Brazilian economy and the election of the far-right politician Bolsonaro. The film follows the work of three journalists from the newspaper ‘El País’. In partnership with The Intercept, they publish a series of reports based on the private messages exchanged between prosecutors and the Judge heading the operation, Sergio Moro. These leaked messages exposed the backstage of the operation revealing the promiscuous relations between parties and their hidden political agenda. A clear case of ‘lawfare’, the operation caused the ruin of construction companies and the condemnation of President Lula, considered a miscarriage of justice.
1970. Elsa (17) works for the Zurita’s family as a domestic worker. Graciela (17), the older daughter, is Elsa’s best friend. Both dream of a future together far from this village which stifles them. But, when everyone is asleep and Elsa is alone, DON Zurita (48), the father, comes to her room and rapes her. One night, Alonso (15), the youngest son, witnessed his father's abominable acts and, sometime, he rapes her too. Elsa gets pregnant and tries to hide it but Graciela realizes it. Together, they decide to find someone who could end the pregnancy. Graciela registers for the queen of student’s election for uses the prize money to pay for the operation. Doña Zurita (48), the mother, discovers their plans and pretending to be a ally. But, she will do everything to prevent abortion and keep the baby.
When their mother moves in to live with her new partner, Simón (15) and his brother Federico (17) experience a social uplift. In their new school, they meet the beautiful Laura, and Simon immediately falls in love. But his brother manages to conquer her first and sleeps with her at a party. Just a few minutes later, Federico dies inexplicably after falling from the apartment's balcony.
While his mother suffers from the loss of Federico and struggles with being unable to find the truth, Simon begins to behave like his dead brother. He even seems to find refuge in Laura, who he starts dating.
Macunaima is the indigenous anti-hero of a legend,, protector of his tribe, born in the north of Brazil, a kind of misfit God with the power to transform his body and face and become white, black, indigenous, man or woman, as he wishes. A 21st century reinterpretation of the 1920-ies avant-garde book of the same name, a metaphor about Brazilian miscegenation culture and its dilemas – mixing indigenous Amazon myths with a critical view of the country’s current reality. The film follows Macunaíma’s life from his childhood till his death, showing how today’s conflicts between indigenous groups in Amazon with the big mining companies from Brazil and Europe are at the center of everything we will have to face in Brazil’s next environmental and cultural crisis. Macunaíma, the anti-hero of his people, is the magic incarnation of the spirit of transformation and creativity of the Brazilian culture.
When dementia begins to progress, Lucía, a transgender woman living with Alzheimer’s at a transphobic nursing home, finds herself mentally repressing to a time before her transition. As the complexities of gender identity resurface, her sense of self becomes an emotional battlefield that she will have to defend and uphold.
Everything begins with a kid who has always been a troublemaker: a future swindler, conning unsuspecting victims with an imaginary golf course he is about to build. He then involves the protagonist of this story – a Mexican who travels to Barcelona with his girlfriend to study literature – in big trouble: a petty drug deal that turns his visit to the city into a disturbing adventure, which, if I described it to you, you probably wouldn’t believe anyway...
I follow three Brazilian women who have prostitution in common as a source of income as well as being mothers. They come from different backgrounds, prostitute themselves in different ways, have children who they don't necessarily educate in an exemplary way, with difficulties that don't necessarily make them victims. Without romanticism, I film these three homes, focusing on the relationships with the secondary characters, companions, grandmothers, friends, who together form clans, at the antipodes of the image of the traditional Christian and patriarchal family so strongly defended by the current Brazilian government. I paint realistic portraits of these families commissioned by women who are strong from their experiences in a hypocritical and macho society and who, by reconciling social roles that may seem incompatible, give us matter of thinking.
It all takes place by the side of a river, far from civilization. Walter catches trout for food. Yesi earns her living by washing clothes for the neighbours. Their romance is sudden, frank in all its innocent savageness. They steal building material from the neighbours and build a tiny shack opposite Grerio’s where they had met. Gradually, abject poverty transforms this idyll into an oppressive routine. And the summer brings along other temptations. Greta, a backpacker with a punk look, pitches her tent on the other side of the river. Blond, attractive and liberated, she unsettles Walter and Yesi by her mere presence. Walter feels attracted to her and Yesi is jealous. Greta sees in Yesi the prototype of the subservient woman and becomes obsessed with liberating her come what may. Misunderstandings, violence and sensuality lead to unexpected manifestations of love.
In the art district of San Blas, Cusco, lives a child artist named Valentina, the youngest of a family of artisans. Valentina is lively and strong and she is in love with the world that surrounds her. She loves looking at the old paintings of the local church where she helps the priests running errands. In the afternoons she goes to school, at night she takes part in organizing each and every one of the town’s religious syncretic celebrations. Valentina has inherited the artistry of her grandfather and her dream is to become like him. Nevertheless, Valentina has a strange mental condition that provokes her constant episodes of epilepsy and doctors in Cusco don’t know how to treat her.
When Josue, a petty cartel gun man, is killed, he leaves behind Sujo, his beloved five-year old son. Sujo will grow up with his aunt, amidst hardship and the constant danger of the cartel. When his father’s destiny seems to catch up with him, Sujo will escape to the city, leaving his childhood behind. He will never know it but he will fulfill his father’s wish who named him after the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in the misery of his own childhood : a horse, black and pure, called Sujo.
It is autumn, mist covers an adobe house on a hill. A wedding between a young Haitian couple is about to start. The wedding party is sparse. Some Chilean farmers observe the events from outside without participating as the sun sets over the valley. Slowly and timidly they join the party. Night falls. The dead body of the young boyfriend is found. No one has seen anything. A quick investigation takes us to the homes of the witnesses from the party. Each one has a different version. No one says they saw anything, no one casts suspicion on anyone. It is spring and the crime seems to have been forgotten. José, one of the witnesses to the marriage and the crime, awaits his first child. The baby is born, but something strange happens. José refuses to see him again, no one in town goes to visit them. Some time later José tells the townspeople that the baby has died. The town begins to speculate.
It took but a stroke of fate to make the girl I was then to not show up at that meeting with war. Other girls did go to it, and ended up by joining the guerrilla. This story reemerges after all these years and, now, I am inescapably pursuing it. In 2016, I found out that, after the signing of the peace treaty with the Colombian government, 8.000 guerrilla members, of which 3.500 were women. I thought to myself: “one of those guerrilla women could have been me.” Months later, I found myself deeply immersed in the jungle, searching for those women whose destiny had been, indeed, to join the guerrilla. I lived there with many guerrilla women. In 2017, these women surrender their arms and reenter civil life. They begin to look for their families and children. The hardest of all is knowing that civil society doesn’t want to take these female ex-combatants back in.
Ichi is the eldest of two brothers and a member of the Yakuza mafia in Japan. He was sent to Mexico to start a human trafficking business in association with the Mexican mafia. Ichi disappears without a trace and is presumed dead, so his younger brother – outside of the mafia – travels to Tijuana where Ichi was seen for the last time.
Mateus (12) and João Lucas (15) witness the murder of their parents by an unknown boy on the dark outskirts of São Paulo. After the traumatic event the two brothers become MT and JL and start living in an abandoned car where they sleep and remember the dreams they once had and of the family they can’t have. Things start to change when Dalyla (15), JL's childhood crush, reappears deformed after a boating accident. She is involved in a card cloning scheme and lures her older brother into the crime. In a parallel development, MT finds in a middle-aged woman, Irene, a mirage of his deceased mother. Marked by the death of her son, she transfers to the boy all the affection she has been keeping inside. When JL and Dalyla flee the police after being discovered, MT moves in with Irene. However, like Yin and Yang, the brothers cannot survive apart as if their lives depended on the same tragic act that destroyed their family.
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