The best Jorge Coutinho’s movies

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.

Balogun's most political film is a confrontation with the African wars of liberation. Based on Carcase for Hounds, Meja Mwangi's novel about the Mau-Mau uprising, it is set in an unnamed country and thus offers the vision of a pan-African struggle for freedom and against colonial oppression. The central figures in the straightforwardly and powerfully told story are the guerrilla leader Haraka and his adversary, the English colonial official Kingsley. In the end, the film becomes a homage to the freedom fighters from all over Africa: the final images show Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela and Amílcar Cabral, among others.

A Deusa Negra is a love story that spans two centuries. In 18th century Yorubaland, Prince Oluyole is taken prisoner in the course of internecine warfare fanned by overseas slave traders. He is sold into slavery in Brazil. In present day Nigeria, at his father's deathbed, the young Babatunde promises to go to Brazil and search for traces of their once-enslaved ancestors. Beginning with a Candomblé ritual, his journey takes him ever deeper into this culture and, in a dream-like sequence, affords him a deeper understanding of his ancestors' suffering and powers of resistance. Balogun effortlessly links present with past, real with magical worlds and discourse with trance. The hypnotic atmosphere is also heightened by the music of the Nigerian drummer Remi Kabaka, which plays with repetitive patterns and distortions.

Rich and spoiled kid, frustrated for not being chosen to join the soccer lessons his idol Zico was going to give, asks his father to clone the player. But a small girl smells something fishy going on and asks her friends to help save the Brazilian soccer star.

A rock singer goes to Brazil to shoot a video, but winds up getting kidnapped and enduring a number of seemingly bizarre and hilarious events.

A young rock singer meets his childhood heroine, a famous singer who is now wallowing in alcohol and sex.

This documentary investigates the aesthetic, political and existential trajectory of emblematic Black Brazilian actor Antônio Pitanga. He career spans over five decades, and he has worked with iconic Brazilian filmmakers Glauber Rocha, Cacá Diegues and Walter Lima Jr. He was a prominent figurehead and outspoken activist during the Brazilian dictatorship, a period of unrest in Brazilian cinema. Pitanga deep dives into the world of Antônio and the history of Brazil. The documentary was directed by his daughter Camila Pitanga, one of widely recognised faces in Brazilian television and cinema right now. The film is also a poem, and a tender ode to fatherhood.

Employees on a local supermarket plot an epic heist for robbing the place's vault, but things start to go wrong when they notice a police detective on their heels.

The old servant and chronicler Dom Sabas tells how his desolate South American town is the scene of a ruthless power struggle. The landowning Assis family, reduced to a widow and son, tries to hold out against the young, despotic mayor. No less effective then actions are anonymous rumors and accusations, which often stir the inhabitants' moves.

Hit man does his part in a deal, but doesn't get the money he was promised. For the treason, he decides to eliminate them all.