Marcos Bernstein Movies
Regina (Fernanda Montenegro) is a retired divorcée living in Rio de Janeiro. She's estranged from her only son and his family because he's invited his father to live with him. She's devoted to her dog, Betina, and occupies her spare time as a member of the police force's special senior citizen program. Regina, operating under the code name "Snow White" spends a lot of her time looking for wrongdoers to report to the police. She spends her evenings looking out her apartment window with binoculars into the windows of her neighbors across the street. One night, she watches as an older gentleman appears to give his bedridden wife a lethal injection. She reports it to the police, but they back off when they learn that the gentleman, Carmago (Raul Cortez), is a respected member of the judiciary. Alcides (Luiz Carlos Persy), Regina's police contact, gets so much political flack that he kicks Regina out of the program. But Regina takes it upon herself to continue the investigation on her own. Carmago notices that he's been seeing her around a lot, and, thinking it's a coincidence, asks Regina out on a date. She accepts for the sake of her "investigation," but before long the two find that they are really hitting it off. The Other Side of the Street was co-written and directed by Marcos Bernstein, who co-wrote the script for Central Station, the film that earned Montenegro an Academy Award nomination. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernanda Montenegro, Raul Cortez, (more)
- 1999
Marcos Bernstein, the co-writer of Central Station (1998), spins this gorgeously photographed, humanistic portrait of a family patriarch in the waning years of his life. Anthony Quinn plays Giuseppe, the aging head of a large family of Italians living in Curitiba, Brazil. While his great-grandchildren's lives drift in separate directions -- one great-grandson wrestles with nudging the family pasta business in a new direction as a great-granddaughter decides to take the plunge into acting -- Giuseppe is troubled when a relative makes a sudden visit from Italy. She looks exactly like his beloved wife, who died in an unexplained plane crash. One day, he summons his strength, rises from his wheelchair, and walks along the beach to reminisce about his past love. Oriundi was screened at the 1999 Vancouver Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Quinn, Paulo Betti, (more)
This beautifully photographed black and white Brazilian mystery chronicles the union between Paco, an aspiring actor living in Sao Paulo, and Brazil-born Alex, who works as a waitress in Lisbon, Portugal. Much of the tale is set in 1990 when Brazilian president Fernando Collor de Mello threw his country into an economic tailspin by suddenly confiscating the savings accounts of the entire population. At this time, Paco is living with his elderly mother in a poor Sao Paulo neighborhood. Tired of living in squalor, the mother dreams of returning to her native Spain. When she learns that her savings have been seized, the shocked old woman drops dead. Now without his mother, Paco feels little desire to stay in Brazil and so meets with the sleazy Igor, an antique dealer, and agrees to smuggle a violin stuffed with raw diamonds to Lisbon. Paco is to take the fiddle to a certain hotel where he will be paid by the contact. Unfortunately, he arrives, but the contact doesn't. This incident leads him down a twisted road filled with murder, danger and intrigue that eventually ends in the arms of Alex. In many films, this would be the end of the story, but not for Alex and Paco, for they cannot relax and enjoy their relationship unless they can somehow escape the murderous thugs Igor sent to kill them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Fernanda Torres, Fernando Alves Pinto, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Fernanda Montenegro, Marilia Pera, (more)
