Owl

Colour, 35mm
Brazil, 2001, 15 min
Section: New Brazilian Documentary

About the film

This story, featuring 1980’s Brazilian star Bazerra da Silva, focuses on the boom in pagoda (a variant of samba) and on the message and import of the music that is so vital to the poorer neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro. Bazerra da Silva is no crooner of love songs; he sings instead about daily life in the favelas, about corruption and the distribution of drugs among the poor. The movie won Best Short at Miami’s 5th Brazilian Film Festival, the Special Jury Prize at the 29th festival of Brazilian and Latin-American film in Gramado, Brazil as well as other domestic awards. The film was created with financial help from the city of Rio de Janeiro.

About the director

Márcia Derriak graduated in film. Simplício Neto took a degree in social science. Thanks to their mutual love of making documentaries they began creating interesting films that brought filmmaking professionalism to studies of the social aspects of society. Their first co-creation, Dib, about Cinema Novo founder Dib Lutfi, won Best Film at the 13th Rio de Janeiro festival.