Feature by Tim Gardner
 It was Rio de Janeiro that saw the first wave of Brazilian cinema with the cinematograph machine appearing just a year after the first experiments in Paris in 1896. Ever susceptible to French fashion, the Brazilian capital boasted 22 cinema houses film just ten years the emergence of film in France. It also screened the first Brazilian feature, The Stranglers by Antônio Leal. From these humble beginnings the development of film made steady progress and by the end of the 1940's Brazilian filmmaking was becoming a thriving industry. The Vera Cruz Film Company was created in São Paulo with the goal of producing films of international quality. It lured back from Europe Alberto Cavalcanti, a Brazilian filmmaker with an international reputation, to head the company. Vera Cruz produced some important films before it closed in 1954, among them the epic The Brigand (O Cangaceiro), which won the Best Adventure Film award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1953.
In the 1950's, Brazilian cinema radically changed the way it made films borrowing from Italian neorealist techniques, setting the stage for the Cinema Novo movement. In 1955 film, Rio 40 Degrees (Rio 40 Graus), Nelson Pereira dos Santos adopted early guerrilla approaches by going to the streets and using ordinary people to shoot his low budget films. Other directors also went outdoors to shoot, and production of films increased. In 1962, The Payer of Vows (O Pagador de Promessas) by Anselmo Duarte won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite never boasting the same output as the ever-dominant Hollywood, the resilient Brazilian cinema has continued to attract international attention.
The 1980’s saw a drop in production
as the popularity of television meant that movies were not
well attended. Many theatres even closed their doors, especially
in the poorer interior of the country. By the early nineties,
the heavily reduced  production had lead to what many dubbed
an irreconcilable slump in Brazilian cinema. However in 1993
a law was passed to create financial incentives to encourage
Brazilian film production. This essentially marked the turning
point for the modern era of Brazilian film. As a result the
number of films increased dramatically and films such as O Quatrilho (1995) directed by Fabio Barreto, and Central Station (1998) directed Walter Salles, were produced. The latter went on to win, among others, the Golden Bear Grand Prix at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1998 and the Golden Globe’s Best Foreign Film in 1999. It also received a second nomination for Fernanda Montenegro as Best Actress. It tells the story of Josué's, a young boy who sees his mother die in a car crash outside Rio de Janeiro’s Central station. Dora, a dour old woman who writes letters for the illiterate in the station, reluctantly befriends him and they begin a journey to find Josué's father. A highly sensitive film, Central Station depicts the poverty, violence, inequality, and cynicism of a modern Brazil while still maintaining a sense of hope, compassion, and solidarity. It also marks Salles out as a master in the touching portrayal of human emotions. In his recent work on the young Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Salles further proved that his strengths lie in his vision of the human side of larger political and social issues.
Technically Salles paints a beautiful picture of Brazil moving from a monochromatic view to the rich spectrum of the Brazilian landscape as the film progresses. In doing so he moves us from a narrow and simple image of Brazil to a far denser and more complex one. Therefore the success of Central Station is recognised not only because of the international acclaim that surrounds it, but also because of its representation of Brazil. Rather than a one dimensional tourist-board image of the country, Salles explored the issues that affect modern day Brazil and its search for a national identity among a complicated history. Coupled with its mainstream success, Central Station showed the world that Brazilian films could be both universal in their human appeal while remaining true to the experiences of those within Brazil.
The move into the next decade and millennium saw City of God (2002), directed by Director Fernando Meirelles, further reach international audiences. Again not shying away from the harsh realities of modern life it is set in one of the most  dangerous hillside favelas (slums) in Rio de Janeiro. Starting in the 1980s City of God is narrated by Busca-Pé, a resident of the favela, who takes us back to the sixties and tells us of Lil’Ze and Bene, two friends who grow up taking different paths through the violence that surrounds them. During this journey we learn about the gang and gun culture that exists among children as young as ten and the unique crime based autonomy that rules these housing projects. Mereilles actually used many children from the local favelas echoing the earlier period of Cinema Novo period and maintaining authentic realism. However, at the same time the result was a slick aesthetic and fragmented time line that inevitably drew comparisons with Tarantino’s breakthrough works a decade earlier, Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Clearly reaching an audience who had arguably been waiting ten years for such a return to this genre, City of God became Brazil’s greatest international success of all time playing in many countries worldwide.
City of God’s approach to its subject matter also led it to become the most critically acclaimed Brazilian film in recent years. Set in the City of God Favela the film brought an often marginalised area of Brazilian society to the attention of the world. The violence and gang rule of these areas often means that the police can exert little influence. Yet as in the mafia orientated Godfather movies, City of God demonstrates the hierarchical rule and order imposed within these subsections of society. The film is based on a book by anthropologist Paulo Lins that fictionalised his academic research into the poverty-stricken neighbourhood of Rio. When the book was published, São Paulo commercials director Fernando Meirelles bought the film rights. Having never set foot in a favela, Meirelles came into contact with his future co-director, Katia Lund, a fellow Paulista (resident of São Paulo) - and herself a filmmaker specialising in Rio's most violent areas. Between them they produced a film which showed the world the brutal, devastating and inescapable violence which plagues the lives of the residents of the Rio favelas. Yet at the same time it’s sense of style more than held its own among international movies, and once again the Brazilian film industry succeeded in marrying pressing social issues with dynamic filmmaking. Like Salles, Meirelles went on to work outside of Brazil most notably directing the adaptation of the John le Carré novel, The Constant Gardener, starring Ralph Fiennes.
 Carandiru (2003) by the Argentinean director, Hector Babenco, was another film that did not shy away from the harsh realities of Brazil’s inner cities. It is another gritty look this time at Carandiru, the remand centre in central São Paulo that became the most notorious prison on the continent. Heavily overcrowded, in 1992, 111 inmates were killed by military police in riots. Until it was demolished at the end of last year, Carandiru used to hold more than 7,000 prisoners in a space designed for a third that amount. It is based on the book by prison doctor Draúzio Varella, Estação Carandiru, that was a Brazilian literary phenomenon, selling more than 400,000 copies. The film itself progresses through different vignettes telling the stories of various inmates which are linked together by the prison doctor. Causing a similar stir throughout the world, it was naturally expected that Carandiru to do for São Paulo what City of God did for Rio de Janeiro. Both films are attempts to engage with the dysfunctional and unattractive side of urban life and reveal the unimaginable conditions found within Carandiru as a result of overcrowding. However, while Carandiru outdid City of God at the box office, it was not such a well-rounded film. Although it portrays a fascinating paradox of the ultra-violent and the ultra-progressive (such as the transvestite marriages within the walls of the prison), it lacks the insight into basic human emotions that Salles and Meirelles brought to the screen.
The renaissance of Brazilian cinema over the last ten years has no doubt come about largely because of the financial incentives introduced early in the last decade. After all, competitive international production and distribution are a big business. However, the creeping wave of Brazilian fashion sweeping the U.S and Europe has also played at least a small part on the reception of these films. It is now possible to pick up the Brazilian cocktail, the Caipirinha, in any London bar that likes to think itself trendy. Similarly many musical artists are quick to turn to Brazil, known stereotypically as land of sun, sea and samba, for stylish beachside video locations. Yet despite this sun drenched image, these recent films to come from Brazil show that an international market can be reached successfully without compromising on an authentic vision of the country. They seek to engage with issues of violence, poverty and drugs, as well as showcasing the beauty of the country and its people. In this respect they also demonstrate to the world the considerable creative talent that still exists within the Brazilian film industry.
 The future of Brazilian cinema seems bright with Brazilian works gaining ever more exposure. A recent release is the documentary Favela Rising (2005), which charts the rise the musical movement, AfroReggae, and how it unites the people of a favela in Rio against the violence and gang rule that surrounds them. With such origins, comparisons could easily be drawn between AfroReggae and the development of Hip-Hop in 1970s New York, which was born in areas of marginalisation and heavy violence. Therefore, it may be just such a Brazilian unique creative force that takes on the world. After all, Hip-Hop began as localised cultural movement but rose to become a worldwide phenomenon.
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