A Opção

Ozualdo Candeias (1918–2007) remains as one of the greatest Brazilian filmmakers still to be discovered and recognized internationally. A forerunner of “Cinema Marginal” and a key figure in Boca do Lixo, two of the most fertile movements in Brazilian cinema, this truck driver turned filmmaker traveled the roads of the interior of São Paulo state for many years before deciding to buy a Keystone 16mm camera in the 1950s to start making amateur films. Candeias was the director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, and producer of most of his films, leaving behind a legacy of 33 works. Winner of the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival, the filmmaker’s masterpiece Aopção ou As Rosas da Estrada combines masterful handheld documentary camerawork in black and white with staged action based on firsthand experiences to delve into the profoundly quotidian reality of a group of rural women who cut sugar cane and live modestly in ramshackle neighborhoods along the highway. Dreaming of a better life and with no other option than prostitution, many of them hit the road towards the big city, where new forms of exploitation awaits them. (Viennale)