Monarco

A film that depicts the everyday life and the beauty of Portela’s Old Folk – a group of veteran samba musicians who belong to one of Rio’s most revered samba schools, the one with the most first places and accolades in Rio’s Carnaval pageant. These old gentelmen’s and ladies’ musicality and poetry are unveiled through their simple, but rich and meaningful, every day life in Oswaldo Cruz, a quaint neighborhood in Rio’s North Zone, that serves both as set and as a main character in this story.

Amid the dunes and landscapes of the Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, singer and composer Orlando Morais remembers his trajectory, while receiving international and Brazilian artists, such as Caetano Veloso and Huong Thanh, and mixing different musical genres.

Short musical film paying a tribute to samba composer Zé Ketti, one of the greatest popular artists of Brazilian music. In a jam session, in the late composer's house in Inhaúma, a neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, a group of friends get together to play his music while a "feijoada" (typical Brazilian food with black beans)is being cooked in the kitchen. The samba-players, first-rate samba stars themselves, remember Ketti's great hits in a homage to the man who was best known as "a voz do morro" ("the hill's voice" - but hill as a metaphor for a place where poor people build their shacks in slums, in opposition to city, where middle-class people live in Rio). Among the guests, names of the traditional "samba-school" Portela and ex-partners. Also, the presence of a black hat on an empty chair, represents the composer himself, who died in 1999, after a life of many accomplishments in music, and appearance in three of Dos Santos's films: "Rio, 40 Graus", "Rio Zona Norte" and "Boca de Ouro".

An intimate look at the life and career of Paulinho da Costa, the most recorded percussionist in music history. The documentary explores his unique rhythmic language and his collaboration with legendary icons.

A documentary on the gathering of samba composers and musicians on Zeca Pagodinho's country house.

Stories of love and longing based on the testimonies of five widows of great strongholds of Rio samba who, in an invisible work, became guardians of a fundamental part of Brazilian musical history.

A documentary about the celebration of the National Samba Day with the aim of preserving the memory of part of the history of samba, which was being forgotten by the press and the Brazilian people.

Biography of one of the legendary names in the Samba genre of Brazilian music. Although he could hardly dance or play an instrument, he became one of the main composers of Portela, an important Samba "school" in Rio de Janeiro.

No synopsis available yet.

A documentary on the career of Beth Carvalho, the Brazilian singer who became a well known samba legend from the 1970s onwards, edited together from hundreds of hours of footage and audio files kept (and partially recorded) by Carvalho herself during her lifetime.

Documentary made to commemorate the centenary of the birth of the legendary Paulo Benjamin de Oliveira, Paulo da Portela.

Documentary about Brazilian samba songwriter and singer Paulinho da Viola, one of the most sophisticated musicians of the genre. The film shows his biography, influences, masters and friends, as well his simple and peculiar way of life, with activities like restoring old cars, working with wood, playing billiards.

No synopsis available yet.

The life and work of the late samba singer-songwriter Candeia.