Brazilian filmmaker born in Maceió AL, considered the best and most popular Brazilian filmmaker, having freedom as one of the dominant characteristics of his best films. While still small, his family moved to Rio de Janeiro, moving to Botafogo, a neighborhood where he spent his entire childhood and adolescence.
He studied at Colégio Santo Inácio, run by the Jesuits, until taking the entrance exam to the Pontifical University Catholic, the PUC in Rio de Janeiro, where he is studying Law, at a time when there were no schools in Brazil. movie theater. At PUC, as president of the Student Directory, he founded a film club and began his activities as an amateur filmmaker, in the company of David Neves, Arnaldo Jabor, Paulo Perdigão and others. While still a student, he directed the newspaper O Metropolitano, official organ of the Rio de Janeiro State Student Union, and joined the Popular Culture Center of the National Student Union.
During this period, in collaboration with David Neves and Affonso Beato, he made three short films, including Domingo, one of the pioneering films of the movement. Both the PUC and O Metropolitano groups became (1960) one of the founding nuclei of Cinema Novo, of which he was one of the leaders, along with Glauber Rocha, Leon Hirszman, Paulo César Saraceni, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, among others. At CPC, he directed his first professional film, in 35mm, Escola de Samba Alegria de Viver, an episode of the feature film Cinco Vezes Favela (1962), film composed of other episodes directed by Andrade, Hirszman, Marcos Farias and Miguel Borges. Participated in the intellectual and political resistance to the military dictatorship, and temporarily left Brazil (1969), living first in Italy and then in France, in the company of singer Nara Leão, then his wife.
His first child, Isabel, was born in Paris (1970) and back in Brazil, he made two more films, in the middle of the dark phase of the dictatorship. With his 15 feature films, including Ganga Zumba (1964), A Grande Cidade (1966), Os hedeiros (1970), When Carnival arrives (1972), Joana, the Frenchwoman (1973), Xica da Silva (1976), rains de Verão (1978), Bye-bye, Brazil (1979), Quilombo (1984) and Dias Melhor Vão (1990), participated in several international festivals, such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, New York, Toronto etc., winning some important awards, and having commercial exhibitions in Europe, the United States and throughout Latin America, making him one of the best known Brazilian filmmakers in the whole world.
His films and his career are mentioned in all film encyclopedias, with particular emphasis. In his youth he defended the participation of cinema in the battle of ideas, and in his maturity, he condemned the so-called ideological patrol in the creation of a work of art. His work has been the subject of studies and theses published in Brazil and other countries. In France he received the title of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, of which he later became an Officier,. and also became a member of the Cinémathèque Française.
Winner of the Pedro Ernesto Medal of the Rio de Janeiro City Council, also received the title official Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit and the Medal of the Order of Rio Branco, the highest of the parents.. With Nara Leão he was also the father of Francisco (1972) and from his marriage (1982) to Renata de Almeida Magalhães was born Flora (1986).
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Source: Biographies - Academic Unit of Civil Engineering / UFCG
Order C - Biography - Brazil School