THE HIDDEN TIGER
(A Vizinhança do Tigre, Affonso Uchoa, Brazil 2014, 95 min. In Portuguese with English subtitles)
New York Premiere
Affonso Uchoa made a major critical splash on the festival circuit last spring with his award-winning film, Araby. However, Uchoa has been active as a filmmaker for the past eight years.
Made in 2014, The Hidden Tiger charts the lives of a group of young residents of Nacional, a neighborhood in the suburbs of the city of Contagem. Juninho, Menor, Neguinho, Adilson, and Eldo live their lives in dialectical fragments of joy and adversity. Some work in construction, others in drug trafficking; a few attend heavy metal concerts, others play with guns; they read, dance carioca funk, and deal with their families as they struggle with the demands of their daily lives. Music is a key element in Uchoa’s rigorously gentle mise-en-scène—in concert with his patient gaze, it helps to illuminate the faces and bodies of Uchoa’s protagonists. The camera captures and crystallizes moments of small beauty in a landscape of social and economic conflict.
“It is worth noting that, in contrast to the treatment given to pretentiously popular film programs on urban peripheries, here there is no place for demagogy. The film doesn't treat its dwellers as attractions for export, it is an exercise of admirable humanism, nurtured by the five years the director devoted to constructing this admirable fresco.” –André Ldc, Janela Magazine.
Monday, March 26, 7:15pm
Sponsored by the Consulate General of Brazil in New York.
