A highlight of the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival where it had its world premiere, Shine Your Eyes / Cidade Pássaro — the richly textured feature fiction debut from Brazilian filmmaker Matias Mariani — is available worldwide starting today, July 29, on Netflix.
Shine Your Eyes tells the story of Amadi (OC Ukeje), a musician from Lagos who travels to São Paulo to track down his missing older brother Ikenna (Chukwudi Iwuji) and bring him back home to Nigeria. Following the faint traces of Ikenna’s footsteps, he discovers that his brother was not the distinguished math professor he was supposed to be, but actually had contrived an intricate and nearly delusional series of schemes to accumulate wealth in Brazil.
As the mysteries deepen, so too does Amadi’s attraction to this vibrant newfound culture — and to his brother’s Brazilian ex-lover, Emilia. As he closes in on his sibling’s whereabouts, Amadi is faced with choosing between his faithfulness to his family and the possibility of a new life in São Paulo.
The film has received international critic acclaim including from Variety that described it as “a movie that, by both celebrating the culture of its protagonists, the Igbo people… and the exuberant life of São Paulo, delivers a tale of two brothers which is striking in tone and aesthetic with a colorful palette of human interactions and multiple unsaid mysteries.”
