Our last two newsletters covered one weekend, and now, in today’s newsletter, we’ll cover two full weekends at once. That’s just the way it works. Who knows why everyone decided that October 1st was the hot date in 1980?

I’d argue there were plenty of white-hot weekends that month and at least one monster hit was launched in this batch of movies.

Which one? Read on already! You’ll see!

OCTOBER 10

Bye Bye Brazil
José Wilker, Betty Faria, Fábio Jr., Zaira Zambelli, Principe Nabor, Emmanuel Cavalcanti, JoséMárcio Passos, Carlos Kroeber, Joffre Soares, Rodolfo Arena, Aderbal Junior, Carlos Lagoeiro, Catalina Bonakie, Rinaldo Gines, Marcus Vinicius, Walter Bandeira, Oscar Reis, Cleodon Gondin, José Carlos Lacerda, Marieta Severo
cinematography by Lauro Escorel
music by Chico Buarque, Dominguinhos, and Roberto Menescal
screenplay by Carlos Diegues and Leopoldo Serran
produced by Lucy Barreto and Luiz Carlos Barreto
directed by Carlos Diegues
Rated R
1 hr 50 mins

The Lord Gypsy and the Queen of the Rumba travel the countryside of Brazil, but the modern age threatens to end their way of life.

There are films sometimes that do not feel like they were made by part of any film industry, but that instead feel like hand-crafted objects that were created completely outside of any conventional commercial considerations. Carlos Diegues was part of a movement of film called Cinema Novo, South American filmmakers who were looking to explore realistic contemporary ideas and to tell stories about themselves and their changing culture. Diegues had made several movies by the time he got to Bye Bye Brazil, which was a modest breakout international hit, his first movie that really traveled outside Brazil.

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