
Directing
Júlio Bressane
Born 1946-02-13 · Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Júlio Eduardo Bressane de Azevedo (Rio de Janeiro, February 13, 1946 ) is a Brazilian filmmaker and writer. A representative of the Brazilian Cinema Marginal, he began making films as an assistant director of Walter Lima Jr., in 1965. In 1967, Bressane debuted as director with Face to Face, being selected for the Festival of Brasilia. In 1970, he founded Belair Movies in company with fellow filmmaker Rogério Sganzerla. They chose a model of making films and low-cost production and thereby managed to run six feature films in just six months. He came into exile in London in the early 1970s, but returned to Brazil several years later and made one film after another, using slapstick and debauchery as its main features. An acclaimed film of this period was the provocative Tabu, released in 1982. Critics consider Bressane the most scholarly of the Brazilian film directors, and his work is notable for the diversity of its narrative language. Another feature of his filmography is the comprehensive approach to historical and literary characters. He is also noted by his low-budget, short-time shootings, with an average of 11 to 14 days to make and edit a film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Júlio Bressane licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
7.8Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
The Agony
1976
NRBetween February an May of 1970, Julio Bresane and Rogerio Sganzerla made 7 films for their company Belair that were forbidden by the Brazilian censorship that reveal today images of an unique freedom.
Belair
2009
6.5The fictional encounter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in the 30s) between popular songwriter Lamartine Babo and inconoclast poet and playwright Oswald de Andrade.
Tabu
1983
5.3Sentimental Education centers on the unique relationship between Áurea, a lonely 40 year old teacher, and a young man she has just met by chance – one of these encounters which mythology and literature are full of. A delicate soul who finds itself attracted to a beauty that seems to demand, disturb and move her. That shakes her up entirely. During the days following their first conversation, she will expose all her feelings through classes in which he will let himself be carried away. Until an unusual episode from the past is revealed and changes everything.
Sentimental Education
2013
NRWe see the film, not the cinema; cinema remains hidden within the film. Cinema is the Phantom of the Opera. A movement and a moment of transition, the Phantom fades away with each opera. It disappears and then reemerges in another, and another, and another, and yet another opera.
Phantom of the Opera
2026
NRA liberal interpretation of the book Galáxias, one of the most important works by the great contemporary Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos, written between 1963 and 1976 and published in 1986. Bressane considers this work of poetry the Portuguese Finnegan's Wake. The video is a disorganized system of images: an exploration of colors, quotes and sudden inspirations created by the words. A sequence of epiphanies, rigorous in their images. The films cited act as cinematographic scenery, conferring a sense of drama to the movements of the actresses and the readings of the poems.
Galáxia Albina
1992
6.0The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.
Chinese Viola
1975
NRWhen I wake will I be someone else?
Earth
2015
5.0In 1965, a year after the military coup in Brazil, an oasis of freedom opened in the country's capital. The Brasília Film Festival: a landmark of cultural and political resistance. Its story is that of Brazilian cinema itself.
Candango: Memoirs from a Festival
2020
NR"They are combinations of fragments. There are no stories, it is possible to mount these fragments in many ways. »Cine-eye or cine-voice-eye. The text of the Galaxies goes straight to the image. »A text rewritten for the eye» (H. de Campos). A short film that is more than experimental and that is based on a dark aesthetic that takes from the work of poet Haroldo de Campos its "dark matter" to combine it with the filmmaker's rarefied images and the puppet-like markings of actresses Bete Coelho and Mariana de Moraes.
Dark Galaxy
1993
5.5In September 2007 Júlio Bressane goes to Ferrara. In the cemetery of the Italian city he ends up making two movies.
Ver Viver Reviver
2007
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Nietzsche em Português
2023
5.5A rescue of the history of Ipanema beach in the 1970s, when the construction of a pier changed the landscape and created fertile soil for a generation of artists and sportsmen.
Dunas do Barato
2017
6.0A statue steps down from the pedestal and sets out in search of her Creator, the cold Queen of the Night. In the urban night, she encounters mysterious figures that disappear like shadows. Freely inspired by characters from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.
The Queen of the Night
2023
8.2An abandoned tumbledown theater in the outback of Paraíba state is the initial setting of a film about cinema, which explores the testimonials of the novelist and playwright Ariano Suassuna and other filmmakers such as Ruy Guerra, Julio Bressane, Ken Loach, Andrzej Wajda, Karim Ainouz, José Padilha, Hector Babenco, Vilmos Zsigmond, Béla Tarr, Gus Van Sant and Jia Zhangke. They all respond to two basic questions: why do they make movies and why do they serve the seventh art. The filmmakers share their thoughts about time, narrative, rhythm, light, movement, the meaning of tragedy, the audience‘s desires and the boundaries with other forms of art.
About Cinema
2015
5.5A silent film shot in New York in 1972, including scenes in Hélio Oiticica’s apartment. Last film made in exile by Bressane, it mimics the experimental concept of "quasi-cinema" by Hélio Oiticica. It consists of a fragmentary experience of freedom, in super-8 and 16mm, in a code out of time, out of the square, while recreating (with different cameras) the wild and sensitive look that Oiticica dedicated to cinema. Its definitive 71-minute restored version was completed in the early 2000s.
Lágrima Pantera: A Míssil
1972
9.0For this behemoth, Bressane took his opera omnia and edited it in an order that first adheres to historical chronology but soon starts to move backwards and forward. The various pasts – the 60s, the 80s, the 2000s – comment on each other in a way that sheds light on Bressane’s themes and obsessions, which become increasingly apparent and finally, a whole idea of cinema reveals itself to the curious and patient viewer. Will Bressane, from now on, rework The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus when he makes another film? Is this his latest beginning? Why not, for the eternally young master maverick seems to embark on a maiden voyage with each and every new film!
The Long Voyage of the Yellow Bus
2023
5.0An essay around the streets, as an homage to Fernando Pessoa
Drumming Beat of the Stars
2012
NRA documentary chronicling the life and works of Brazilian poet, songwriter, journalist and avant-garde filmmaker Torquato Neto, from his beginnings to his suicide at the age of 28.
Torquato Neto, O Anjo Torto da Tropicália
1992
5.0A short documentary on Belair, an independent Brazilian film company that lasted for only five months in 1970.
A Miss e o Dinossauro
2005
6.5Irreverent adaptation of great writer Machado de Assis's masterpiece "Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas" ("Brás Cubas's Posthumous Memories"). A dead man tells about his love life and adventures, specially his affair with Virgília, a dubious married woman.
Brás Cubas
1985
NRVladimir Carvalho's Cinema of Inequality marked the documentary filmmaker's trajectory over decades of activity. Considered one of the most important Brazilian documentary filmmakers in activity, his images influenced the emergence of Cinema Novo and the new Brazilian documentary years later. Quando a Coisa Vira Outra covers the most important films made by Vladimir, revealing where ideas come from to show the true reality of a country.
Quando a Coisa Vira Outra
2022
6.6An essay film on the editing of erotic movies.
Naive Cinema
1979
6.0A dysfunctional family, composed of a prostitute and two gay men, one strong and the other fragile and stupid, lives a routine life in Rio de Janeiro. When the slut threatens the other two to stop supporting them, they decide to find an odalisque as an alternative to keep their easy life.
The Rowdy Family
1970
Behind the camera
6.8Santamaria and Urtigo are two bandits on the run, one is white, the other black. Santamaria is a mystical visionary and believes in the imminent coming of a purifying angel. Urtiga, his inseparable companion, is a simple-minded and ingenious man who follows Santamaria around and participates in the crimes he commits. The two bandits take over a house after kidnapping its owner and his girlfriend.
The Angel Was Born
1969
6.8Santamaria and Urtigo are two bandits on the run, one is white, the other black. Santamaria is a mystical visionary and believes in the imminent coming of a purifying angel. Urtiga, his inseparable companion, is a simple-minded and ingenious man who follows Santamaria around and participates in the crimes he commits. The two bandits take over a house after kidnapping its owner and his girlfriend.
The Angel Was Born
1969
6.8Santamaria and Urtigo are two bandits on the run, one is white, the other black. Santamaria is a mystical visionary and believes in the imminent coming of a purifying angel. Urtiga, his inseparable companion, is a simple-minded and ingenious man who follows Santamaria around and participates in the crimes he commits. The two bandits take over a house after kidnapping its owner and his girlfriend.
The Angel Was Born
1969
5.0Made for the Venice Film Festival's 70th anniversary, seventy filmmakers made a short film between 60 and 90 seconds long on their interpretation of the future of cinema.
Venice 70: Future Reloaded
2013
7.8Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
The Agony
1976
7.8Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
The Agony
1976
7.8Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
The Agony
1976
6.2Story with some autobiographical touches taken from director's life.
Miramar
1997
6.2Story with some autobiographical touches taken from director's life.
Miramar
1997
6.2Story with some autobiographical touches taken from director's life.
Miramar
1997
6.5The fictional encounter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in the 30s) between popular songwriter Lamartine Babo and inconoclast poet and playwright Oswald de Andrade.
Tabu
1983
6.5The fictional encounter in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (in the 30s) between popular songwriter Lamartine Babo and inconoclast poet and playwright Oswald de Andrade.
Tabu
1983
5.3Sentimental Education centers on the unique relationship between Áurea, a lonely 40 year old teacher, and a young man she has just met by chance – one of these encounters which mythology and literature are full of. A delicate soul who finds itself attracted to a beauty that seems to demand, disturb and move her. That shakes her up entirely. During the days following their first conversation, she will expose all her feelings through classes in which he will let himself be carried away. Until an unusual episode from the past is revealed and changes everything.
Sentimental Education
2013
5.3Sentimental Education centers on the unique relationship between Áurea, a lonely 40 year old teacher, and a young man she has just met by chance – one of these encounters which mythology and literature are full of. A delicate soul who finds itself attracted to a beauty that seems to demand, disturb and move her. That shakes her up entirely. During the days following their first conversation, she will expose all her feelings through classes in which he will let himself be carried away. Until an unusual episode from the past is revealed and changes everything.
Sentimental Education
2013
NRWe see the film, not the cinema; cinema remains hidden within the film. Cinema is the Phantom of the Opera. A movement and a moment of transition, the Phantom fades away with each opera. It disappears and then reemerges in another, and another, and another, and yet another opera.
Phantom of the Opera
2026
NRWe see the film, not the cinema; cinema remains hidden within the film. Cinema is the Phantom of the Opera. A movement and a moment of transition, the Phantom fades away with each opera. It disappears and then reemerges in another, and another, and another, and yet another opera.
Phantom of the Opera
2026
NRA liberal interpretation of the book Galáxias, one of the most important works by the great contemporary Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos, written between 1963 and 1976 and published in 1986. Bressane considers this work of poetry the Portuguese Finnegan's Wake. The video is a disorganized system of images: an exploration of colors, quotes and sudden inspirations created by the words. A sequence of epiphanies, rigorous in their images. The films cited act as cinematographic scenery, conferring a sense of drama to the movements of the actresses and the readings of the poems.
Galáxia Albina
1992
NRA liberal interpretation of the book Galáxias, one of the most important works by the great contemporary Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos, written between 1963 and 1976 and published in 1986. Bressane considers this work of poetry the Portuguese Finnegan's Wake. The video is a disorganized system of images: an exploration of colors, quotes and sudden inspirations created by the words. A sequence of epiphanies, rigorous in their images. The films cited act as cinematographic scenery, conferring a sense of drama to the movements of the actresses and the readings of the poems.
Galáxia Albina
1992
NRA liberal interpretation of the book Galáxias, one of the most important works by the great contemporary Brazilian poet Haroldo de Campos, written between 1963 and 1976 and published in 1986. Bressane considers this work of poetry the Portuguese Finnegan's Wake. The video is a disorganized system of images: an exploration of colors, quotes and sudden inspirations created by the words. A sequence of epiphanies, rigorous in their images. The films cited act as cinematographic scenery, conferring a sense of drama to the movements of the actresses and the readings of the poems.
Galáxia Albina
1992
6.0The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.
Chinese Viola
1975
6.0The rare short film presents a curious dialogue between filmmaker Julio Bressane and actor Grande Otelo, where, in a mixture of decorated and improvised text, we discover a little manifesto to the Brazilian experimental cinema. Also called "Belair's last film," Chinese Viola reveals the first partnership between photographer Walter Carvalho and Bressane.
Chinese Viola
1975
NR"Life and work of the Maranhense poet Sousândrade (1833-1902), illustrated with engravings on Brazilian history, from the discovery to the proclamation of the Republic."
O Guesa
1969
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Pitico: Hermes Ayres Azevedo (1881-1959) - Local Historian
2026
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Pitico: Hermes Ayres Azevedo (1881-1959) - Local Historian
2026