Song of the Sea

The story of migrants fleeing the drought, who in a first stage in the migrations to the south of Brazil made their way to the coast, and met with a sad fate of madness, poverty, treachery, and hopelessness from which the main character, a boy, wishes to escape. One of the families consists of an aged father, an invalid, and somewhat unstable, the mother, a washerwoman, the son, as yet young, but already encharged with the subsistence of his family. His little brother dies unassisted. The sister sees poverty put an end to her dreams. The search for a way out favors the disintegration of this family. Northeastern maternal lore devised to bear the high rate of infant mortality is exposed: the mother must not weep so as not to hinder the angel-child from admittance to heaven.

Alberto de Almeida Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro on February 6, 1897. He started his career as script writer, art director and director in Paris in the twenties, in the early days of cinema. In 1926, he directed a vanguard documentary, Nothing But Time, describing life for some of the workers in Paris during a single day. Cavalcanti moved to England in 1933 to work as a sound engineer and later as producer at the GPO Film Unit, under director John Grierson. With the outbreak of World War II, he transferred to Ealing Studios where he worked for Michael Balcon. There he directed films that were important to his career, such as Champagne Charlie (1944) and They Made me a Fugitive (1947). In the late forties, on invitation of Assis Chateaubriand, he returned to Brazil to be director at Vera Cruz film producers, newly instituted in São Bernardo do Campo. He made some of his best known films in Brazil, with his own producing company (not Vera Cruz) - Simon the One-Eyed (1952) and Woman of Truth (1954). Under pressure for his leftist political position, he again left Brazil in the late fifties and settled in Paris where he produced films for cinema and TV. The last film he directed was La Visite de la Vieille Dame (1971; for TV). He died in Paris on August 23, 1982.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA