Brazil

Overview

The music of samba is even more powerful than the flag of Brazil as Alberto, a music producer, mentions in the film. In Brazil you can listen to samba rhythms anywhere you go. From small cafes in poor areas, to the hype places in Copacabana beach, and always accompanied by Brazilian bodies dancing to its sound, making it even more phantasmagoric. Samba has been influencing all the succeeding musical genres that have emerged in Brazil with Rio de Janeiro being its birth place. As Gilberto Gil says in his interview, Samba is one of the two national musical genres, along with Pagode. As with the whole country, samba music has been the result of a great mixture, that of white Europeans, African blacks and native Indians and it is due to this mixture that Brazil is what it is and its music is so unique. This documentary is trying to explore the magic of samba and its history, not from an academic point of view, but through the native musicians' perspective and through the music they produce. The samba of the 'botiquinhas' (small cafes) in the area of Lapa in Rio de Janeiro, the samba of Teressa Cristina, Pedro Miranda, Sururu na Roda, Tia Surica and the sound of Portela music school, the samba of the great musician Gilberto Gil.
 When Moreno Veloso, son of Caetano Veloso was asked the almost stupid question "what is Brazilian music?" he replied by taking out his guitar and singing a bossa-nova song by Antonio Carlos Jobim. That's Brazilian music he said when he took down his guitar. This documentary is an attempt to explore Brazilian music and its two great movements Bossanova and Tropicalismo that made Brazilian music travel all over the world from the Hollywood movies in the 60's to the heart of London in the 70's. From the bossanova period of Tom Jobim and Joao Gilberto to the years of the Brazilian dictatorship and the movement of Tropicalismo, up until today. The documentary also aims to show how the above have influenced the new generation of musicians. The fathers of Tropicalismo, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Jards Macale, Jorge Mautner and Tom Ze, are part of the old generation of musicians and it's around their interviews that the narrative is built. We listen to their stories and music, whilst at the same time we notice at their concerts and recordings how much they are connected with their sons and daughters, the younger generation of musicians. We see Caetano Veloso recording at his studio with a crew composed of his son Moreno and his friends. We also see Gilberto Gil at a big concert playing a duo with his son…