Donald Ranvaud Movies

A handful of youngsters searching for excitement may be throwing away their future along the way in this drama. Gerardo, Nano and Raymundo are three teenage boys growing up in a small town in Guatemala. Bored and restless, the kids look for kicks by borrowing cars from their folks and cruising with tanks of stolen gasoline. Stuck in the emotional overdrive of adolescence, Gerardo, Nano and Raymundo indulge in petty crime, pick fights with their elders, try to make time with girls and commit acts of vandalism as they struggle to make sense of their angry, self-destructive instincts. In time, the kids begin to turn on one another, and their search for a true meaning in their lives takes an ugly turn as they head down a dangerous path with no way back. Gasolina (aka Gasoline) was the first feature film from writer and director Julio Hernández Cordón, and was honored as Best Latin American Feature at the 2008 San Sebastian International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Two young indigenous brothers from the La Sierra Tarahumara region of northwest Mexico return home from Benito Juarez elementary boarding school, only to find their fates pulling them in opposite directions in director Laura Amelia Guzmán's dramatic meditation on the value of culture and the cost of progress. Evaristo and Luis Antonio Lerma Batista have graduated from boarding school. Though 12-year-old Evaristo would like nothing more than to continue his education, learn Spanish, and lead a bicultural existence, his 11-year-old sibling couldn't see things more differently. Antonio is thrilled to be finished with school. Despite being a considerably bright student, Antonio would much rather spend his days on the family ranch than in the classroom. As both brothers take their tentative first steps into the adult world, they are assigned the task of delivering a package to a faraway community and lent the family horse to get the job done. After taking a wrong turn down a narrow and winding canyon, Evaristo and Antonio decide to tie the horse to a tree and attempt to find a way out. Upon returning some time later, the brothers discover that the horse is missing and they decide to split up. Now, as Antonio searches for the horse and Evaristo sets out to deliver the package, these two brothers will experience a side of Tarahumara culture that can't be taught in a classroom. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A simple cruise turns into a jealous battle for the affections of a sultry prostitute as the co-owners of a small cargo boat make their way down the Brazilian coastline in director Sergio Machado's stylish and sultry erotic drama. Deco (Lazaro Ramos) and Naldinho (Wagner Moura) are best friends who make their living by renting out their modest cargo boat. Approached by 20-year-old prostitute Karinna (Alice Braga) for a ride down the coast, the trio sets out into the waters with both Deco and Naldinho employing her professional services throughout the course of the journey. After a fateful knife fight at a Cachoeira cockfight leaves Naldinho struggling for his life, Deco finds himself slowly falling for Karinna as his badly wounded friend battles back from the brink of death. Though Karinna's relationship with Deco becomes increasingly intimate during Naldinho's convalescence, it doesn't take long for the kindly prostitute to realize that Deco isn't the only one with intentions of claiming her as his own. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Peruvian filmmaker Alberto 'Chicho' Durant directs the ensemble film Doble Juego (Con Game). Rafo (Fabrizio Aguilar) is a would-be filmmaker in Lima struggling to pay his bills and support his girlfriend Laura (Mari Pili Barreda). He gets scammed by a Spanish con artist (Fernando Cayo) as part of an elaborate scheme involving several other Peruvians. The film is based on the corrupt administration of President Fujimori. Con Game was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 as part of the World Cinema program. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

João Francisco dos Santos was a figure of no small infamy in Brazil during the 1930s -- he was a flamboyantly gay drag performer who was also a notorious criminal, thoroughly unashamed of his sexual orientation and willing to defend himself with deadly force if the situation demanded. Writer and director Karim Ainouz brings dos Santos' story to the screen in this vibrant drama seasoned with music and dance. A tall and physically imposing man, dos Santos (played by Lázaro Ramos) grew up poor on the streets of Brazil; and once he reached adulthood, he shared a home in one of Rio de Janeiro's less picturesque neighborhoods with a handful of friends, including Laurita (Marcelia Cartaxo), a streetwalker; her baby daughter; Taboo (Flavio Bauraqui), a nightclub performer who sometimes turned tricks for extra cash; and Renatinho (Felippe Marques), one of dos Santos' lovers. After landing a job at a nightspot called The Blue Danube, dos Santos grew fascinated with the elaborate costumes and choreography of the stage shows, and became a singer and dancer at the club. However, when the management declined to pay him, dos Santos took matters into his own hands and demanded his salary at knifepoint, leading to the first of many stays behind bars. Upon his release, dos Santos pledged to make his name as a cross-dressing entertainer, though his fiery temper made taking advantage of him a bad idea. Madame Satã was screened as part of the "Un Certain Regard" series at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

One young man's forbidden love threatens to destroy his life and tear his family apart in this epic-length period drama from Brazil. In the early '40s, teenaged Andre (Selton Mello) is being raised in a strict and deeply religious home, where his father (Raul Cortez) is known to grill his children about his spiritual failings over the dinner table. However, Andre is being torn apart inside by his uncontrollable lust for his sister Ana (Simone Spoladore); a beautiful young woman, Ana unknowingly excited her brother's desires while dancing uninhibitedly at a community gathering, and now he's wracked with longing for her. Unable to remain at home with Ana, Andre runs away to live with his secret shame, only to be brought back into the family fold by his older brother, Pedro (Leonardo Medeiros). Andre confesses his unnatural desire to Pedro, but he finds that confession does little to ease his passion, and while Ana remains unaware of her brother's feelings for her, she is also being consumed with desires she cannot freely express until she once again performs a lust-addled dance at neighborhood festival. Adapted from a novel by Raduan Nassar, Lavoura Arcaica was written, directed, and edited by Luiz Fernando Carvalho; it was his first theatrical feature after a celebrated career in Brazilian television. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Former documentary filmmaker Walter Salles (Foreign Land) directed this Brazilian-French road movie tracing the travels and travails of a young boy and an aging woman across the Brazilian landscape. In Rio de Janeiro's central railroad station, callous Dora (leading Brazilian stage/screen actress Fernanda Montenegro) works at a stand where she writes letters for a parade of poor and illiterate. Some of these remain undelivered because she chooses not to mail all of the letters. One of her customers is a woman whose nine-year-old son, Josue (Vinicius de Oliveira), hopes to see the father he has never met, but after the mother dictates two letters to the father, she's killed when hit by a bus. Since Josue is left homeless, Dora reluctantly takes him home to her small apartment overlooking the railroad tracks, where she sometimes spends time with her neighbor Irene (Marilia Pera). Dora places Josue with people who claim to find adoptive parents. When Irene informs her they actually sell children who are then killed for their organs, Dora rescues Josue, and the two board a bus. After a failed attempt to abandon Josue at a roadside stop, Dora and Josue hitch a ride from a religious truck driver. Failing to locate his father, they arrive penniless at a huge rural religious convocation, where Josue suggests Dora bring her letter-writing skills back into play. The notion works, and Dora profits by writing letters to saints for the more devout among the assembled multitudes. Continuing on, they arrive at a sprawling-mass housing development -- and hopefully, a solution to the problem of a family for Josue. Young actor de Oliveira was a shoeshine boy who beat out more than 1,500 other children who auditioned or were interviewed for the Josue role. Made with grants from the Sundance Institute, NHK, and the French Ministry of Culture, this film was shown at 1998 film festivals (Sundance, Berlin). ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

This Brazilian film by auteur Carlos Reichenbach offers a lush, at times surreal, collage that pays tribute to the arts and presents his personal experiences and political insights as it examines the youthful memories of two close friends. Torres and Xavier are old friends who have recently published a volume of poetry. Their celebration in a rundown pastry bar becomes the framework for their reminiscences. The story frequently jumps from past to present. Their friendship began in 1957. They next remember the 60's where they discovered loving and shared a passion for movies. In the present, Anesia, a prostitute arrives and causes Torres to remember the time her pimp forced him to play her date as she visited her parents. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

There have been quite a few spoofs of Hollywood, and a similar number of spoofs about filmmaking in general. This is one of the few spoofs which is about film festivals and, in particular, the Taormina festival in Italy. It was shot during the 1988 festival using many of the actual participants in the festival as actors and leading characters. When word of the film went round, many more wanted to participate than was originally planned, and further scenes were shot during the next year's festival. It was finally shown at the 1990 festival. Those who are not playing themselves are portraying characters who are easily recognized by those attending the festival, though these references are probably impossible for non-participants to understand. Nonetheless, the scenes showing the chaos and energetic self-promotion behind the scenes serve to leaven the heavy seriousness with which festivals promote themselves. The frequently leaden, self-important themes of many festival films are not exempt from barbs in this comedy, any more than the are the windbag philosophical utterances of the unhappy critics who must watch them. Reviewers of this film expressed considerable pleasure in observing the gusto with which the participants made fun of themselves in this unusual festival offering. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide