Jorge Durán Movies

First-time writer-director Jorge Duran - a native Chilean who resides and works in Brazil - helmed Proibido proibir (AKA Forbidden to Forbid), a muckraking drama that aggressively unearths and explores the social issue of street violence at the hands of Brazilian authorities. The film opens by exploring the volatile love triangle that develops between three students at the Federal University: undergraduate sociology major Leon; his architecture student paramour, Leticia; and medical student Paulo, Leon's best friend and bunkmate, with whom Leticia is deeply smitten. Paulo is enrolled in an internship at the University Hospital, where he and Leon and Leticia all become acquainted with Rosalina, a terminally ill woman estranged from her two boys. She asks her new friends to look into her sons' whereabouts, and in searching for the boys, they run headfirst into merciless on-street violence at the hands of Brazilian cops. It is a subject Leon knows all too well, as policeman gunned down his street vendor brother not long ago. Fate intervenes when he and Leticia find Rosalina's sons, and attempt to save the youngest, but Leon - like his brother - falls into the path of a policeman's bullet. The bullet only injures him, however, and Leticia takes Leon home, so that Paulo can perform an emergency operation and remove the bullet. In the process, the love between Leon and Leticia deepens, while the bonds friendship grow tighter among the three. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A lonely pianist develops a dangerous attraction to a mysterious woman in red he meets in the subway. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

In this dark Chilean drama, a female television journalist has a strange involvement with a terrorist. It all begins when reporter Florencia tries to get in contact with a guerrilla group for an interview and ends up abducted by a masked couple and taken to a radio station where the two begin broadcasting their manifesto. The male terrorist, Pedro, is so moved by his earnest words that he removes his mask to speak more clearly. Florencia finds herself strangely moved by his sincerity. Problems fire up when Luisa, the other terrorist kills a technician; she heads for Florencia but Pedro orders her spared and so begins a strange, brief affair between them. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The too often tragically ignored street children of Rio de Janeiro figure prominently in this thriller that begins in a hillside slum where 13-year-old Branquinha brags to a German television crew that she has married the neighborhood equivalent to "Joe Cool." Actually her husband is a dim-witted fatso drug runner who gets into deep trouble after he inadvertently causes his boss's demise. With other dealers hot on his trail, Maguila escapes with Branquinha and her friend Japa. The trouble really begins when Maguila bungles again and ends up trapped in a rich-man's villa in the middle of a hostage situation. Now only his diminutive "bride" and her friend can save them. Things get worse when the press gets involved. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

The Brazilian Color of Destiny stars Guilherme Fontes as a tormented Rio de Janeiro teen. Fontes' family had fled Chile's repressive Pinochet regime, but not before his older brother was tortured and killed by the Chilean police. The boy's cousin Julia Lemmetz arrives in Rio, having herself escaped Chile for political reasons. Drawn to his activist cousin, Fontes joins her at an anti-Pinochet demonstration at the Chilean embassy. The two rebels storm the embassy and dump a can of red paint in the office of one of the diplomats. With this one act of defiance, Fontes is finally able to purge the guilt he's always felt over the death of his brother. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The Brazilian Pixote so closely resembles the films of Luis Buñuel that one is almost shocked to see writer/director Hector Babenco's name on the credits. This is hardly the only shock in this near-hallucinatory cinematic experience. The title character, played by Fernando Ramos da Silva, has been abandoned by his parents and is scrounging for a living on the streets. Pixote survives by becoming a drug-dealer, pimp and murderer...and he's only ten years old. One of the first films to address the plight of Rio de Janeiro's street kids, Pixote combines stark realism with symbolic imagery. The film is based on José Louzeiro's novel Infancia dos Martos. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this action thriller about a real-life bank robber, the Lucio Flavio of the title (played by Reginaldo Farias), it is difficult at times to distinguish the bad guys from the good guys, from the guys who are uncertain, and from the death-squad guys, though even with the confusion, Flavio is not likely to get away. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi