Marilia Pera Movies

Filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho walks the narrow line between reality and drama in this offbeat documentary. Coutinho placed a classified ad in a Brazilian newspaper looking for ordinary women who would be willing to discuss their lives on camera. After filming interviews with twenty-three subjects who responded, Coutinho narrowed his focus down to eight women, and then brought in five actresses to re-enact their stories on camera -- Andrea Beltrao, Lana Guelero, Marilia Pera, Mary Sheyla and Fernanda Torres. In Jogo de Cena (aka Playing), Coutinho cuts back and forth between interviews with the women who share their real-life stories and the actresses interpreting their monologues, discussing everything from their lives with their families to movies they've seen. Periodically, the actresses take a break from their roles to discuss their own perspectives on the project and the nature of their craft. Playing received its North American premiere at the 2008 Miami Film Festival. ~ 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

The fate of a remote Brazilian province will be determined by the passage of a reclamation bill. If the bill goes through the land will be destroyed. Fortunately, Father Stephen Lewis is working hard to stop it. For months he has led numerous high-profile protests, but then just a few days before the assembly retires to decide the bill, he simply vanishes. This off-beat political thriller chronicles the attempts of American reporter Michael Coleman to find the radical priest and interview him. Coleman, who works for a paper in Rio, is obsessed with finding Father Lewis for over the months the two have developed a tempestuous, argumentative relationship over the phone. Privately, Coleman wonders if the outspoken priest's actions mask ulterior motives. Still, he cannot help but respect the father's charisma and drive. So desperate is Coleman to find Lewis, that he stops at nothing, calling in every favor, and even resorting to dirty tricks. In the end it is his blatant abuse of media power that manages to keep the would-be land-grabbers from succeeding. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This highly stylized Brazilian drama contains a nonlinear storyline that effectively erases the thin line between reality and illusion as it follows the night lives of people living on the teeming streets of Sao Paulo. The story begins with a drag queen and the man he just murdered. The scene expands and reveals that he is an actor rehearsing a play. Next a man is shot while driving his convertible. This too is an illusion and as a woman screams it is seen that she is an actress in a movie. The theater director and the actress meet. Soon they get involved with a strange series of characters. All of the stories are framed by visual explorations of film, theater, TV and performance art that comment upon the seamier sides of the town's nightlife. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This boisterous Brazilian comedy is set in Dona Esperanzas lively bar and revolves around the tempestuous love between a bitchy soap opera diva and her husband, a writer for her show and an author of pulp romances. The trouble begins because the actress has become too involved with her role and this is not helped by the show's fans who constantly assault her. The other patrons of the bar lead equally soapy lives. When they all hear that the bar is about to be replaced by a shopping mall, they are devastated. Things really get nutty when a troupe of circus performers suddenly shows up. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Jose Guerra (Flavio Migliaccio) is given a check by a strange Hindu man. He takes it to a local bank where they refuse to cash the check. A computer calls for the man's arrest until it is discovered the check is worth 10 trillion dollars, at which time the money is deposited in a state bank and Jose is sent into exile for his own protection. After marrying his sweetheart Rosinha (Marilia Pera), he dreams of buying the Statue of Liberty and the world's biggest soccer stadium. The common man with uncommon riches now covets the freedom his money cannot buy in this symbolic story. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide