Cinema
Rio, 100 Degrees F.
Rio, 40 graus
Nelson Pereira dos Santos · 1955
Synopsis
On a summer Sunday, five boys from the favela of Morro do Cabuçu, Zeca, Sujinho, Jorge, Paulinho and Xerife, go down to sell peanuts to tourists at Copacabana, Sugarloaf, Corcovado, Quinta da Boa Vista and the Maracanã stadium. They want to buy themselves a ball, and Jorge has to pay for his sick mother's medicine. Guards and police chase them away from places that are not for them. In parallel, the film follows a football player, a pregnant young migrant from the Nordeste and a colonel from the interior.
Context
The first feature film by its author, it was produced as a cooperative, with technicians and laboratory paid in shares of the takings, and shot on location, in the favelas, at the Maracanã or at the central station, with performers from among the people, in the line of Italian neorealism. Cleared by the censors, it was banned in September 1955 by the chief of police, Colonel Menezes Cortes, who accused it of demoralising institutions. A press campaign, in which Jorge Amado took part, and a court appeal won its release on 31 December 1955.
Who it is for
A black-and-white film of about a hundred minutes, shot on real locations, which follows several parallel journeys with no central plot.
Prizes and reception
Heralding Cinema Novo, the film became, through the controversy over its censorship, a landmark of Brazilian cinema.
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