Ruy Polanah

The Fifth Monkey

When Cunda, a man living deep in the Brazilian rainforest, is bitten by a snake, he has a hallucination of four chimpanzees. Once he recovers, he is shocked to find the four chimpanzees waiting for him at home, and, believing them to be special, decides to take them to the city in order to sell them.

Fish in a Barrel

Young robber, son of a prostitute who had killed herself, gets involved with two police informers, who force him to share the loot he gets.

Fitzcarraldo

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

The Guns

A group of armed soldiers is sent to the Northeast of Brazil in an attempt to stop a famine-struck population from invading and stealing a food deposit in the dry backlands. While the alienation and insanity of people driven to hallucination by their latent hunger is conducted by the predictions of a religious figure, a truck driver observes the situation and remains torn between his friendship with the soldiers and his revolt against the lack of government action in fighting the misery that lingers over the region.

Sweet Thieves

After assaulting a Hollywood film crew, a group of residents of a community in Rio de Janeiro decided to produce a film that would express the reality of Brazil - with the theme of Inconfidência Mineira.

Bicho do Mato

Quilombo

Quilombo dos Palmares was a real-life democratic society, created in Brazil in the 17th century. This incredibly elaborate (and surprisingly little-known) film traces the origins of Quilombo, which began as a community of freed slaves. The colony becomes a safe harbor for other outcasts of the world, including Indians and Jews. Ganga Zumba (Toni Tornado) becomes president of Quilombo, the first freely elected leader in the Western Hemisphere. Naturally, the ruling Portuguese want to subjugate Zumba and his followers, but the Quilombians are ready for their would-be oppressors. The end of this Brave New World is not pleasant, but the followers of Zumba and his ideals take to the hills, where they honor his memory to this day. Writer/director Carlos Diegues takes every available opportunity to compare the rise and fall of Quilombo with the state of affairs in modern-day Brazil.

The Emerald Forest

For ten years, engineer Bill Markham has searched tirelessly for his son Tommy who disappeared from the edge of the Brazilian rainforest. Miraculously, he finds the boy living among the reclusive Amazon tribe who adopted him. And that's when Bill's adventure truly begins. For his son is now a grown tribesman who moves skillfully through this beautiful-but-dangerous terrain, fearful only of those who would exploit it. And as Bill attempts to "rescue" him from the savagery of the untamed jungle, Tommy challenges Bill's idea of true civilization and his notions about who needs rescuing.

Malandro

In Rio de Janeiro's bohemian district called Lapa, during the '40s, a stylish and popular scoundrel exploits a cabaret singer, and earns his living by means of petty swindles. But then he meets Ludmila, the cabaret owner's daughter, who wants to get rich smuggling goods in times of war.

Tragic Jungle

In a company trading maté, workers are treated as slaves. Some of them try to escape, but those who are caught suffer severe punishments.