About the selection...

The proposed series consists of a preliminary selection of films since the debut of Brazil's renowned "cinema novo" movement and will be modified after consultation with critics, scholars, archivists, and programmers in Brazil, the United States, and Europe. It is the result of a study of Brazilian films, "best-ten" lists, and discussions with other people.

The series provides examples of films from many sections of Brazil so that the viewer can get a sense of the enormous size and variety of landscapes. However, many of the most interesting films that I considered come from the same regions: the northeast and the southeast, so there are more films from those parts of Brazil. My preference has gone to films with strong stories that are accessible to international audiences with little or no previous knowledge of Brazil and to films that deal in a serious way with social and political issues while demonstrating a creative visual sense. The proposed series does not represent a history of Brazilian cinema nor does it claim to show what is "typical" of movies made in Brazil. What I have tried to do is show some of the most brilliant examples of Brazilian cinema, hoping that the viewer will become curious about Brazil in general and will start looking for other great movies from a world of film-making that is astonishingly little-known in North America and Europe.