This month of september will be marked by the screenings of Xingu and Noel, o Poeta da Vila

The Autumn season will start with the epic Xingu, that tells the story of the creation of the Xingu National Park, an indigenous reservation the size of Belgium created in 1961 in the state of Mato Grosso. The park is home to several tribes such as the Aweti, Kalapalo, Kamauirá and Matipu, among others.

The film is based on the true story of the Villas-Boas brothers, Orlando, Cláudio and Leonardo, who led the the Roncador-Xingu expedition, which began in 1943 and after 24  years left a legacy of more than 40 new towns, 19 airstrips and, its greatest accomplishment, the Xingu National Park. The brothers were the first non-missionaries to actually live among the indigenous peoples of the Upper Xingu region and became internationally renowned as explorers who advanced the indigenous cause, especially with the construction of the park.

The second film of the month, Noel, o Poeta da Vila (Noel, the Samba Poet) is a musical and a biopic of Noel Rosa, one of Brazil’s most renowned samba composers, in his creative years in the 1930s. It gives viewers a realistic yet poetic vision of the social atmosphere in which musicians, singers and composers gathered to play, write and even sell their music in 1930s Rio de Janeiro, a world of impossible loves and incurable diseases.

Noel could be classified as a period drama for its efforts to reconstruct the Rio de Janeiro of the 1930s, in spite of a limited budget. It is also a musical for re-enacting the cabaret performances of singers interpreting Noel’s and other hits of that time, which the singing actors accomplish brilliantly. At the same time it looks like the adaptation of a 19th century opera set in Paris. The fact is that the environment in which Noel Rosa, his friends, lovers and fellow musicians lived and the kind of life they led at that time did in many ways resemble Romantic Paris, a kind of tropical version of the European capital, with the night-life, the cabarets, the gambling, the artistic creativity, and… the tuberculosis.

When: Xingu – 12 September; Noel, o Poeta da Vila – 26 September (both wednesday)
Where: Embassy of Brazil in London – 14 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5BL

All screenings are FREE but RSVP essential due to limited space.

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