Chico & Rita team Fernando Trueba and animator Javier Mariscal return with another animated musical docu-fiction, this time focussing on the story of Francisco Tenório Jr, a brilliant Brazilian pianist who was murdered while touring Argentina in 1976, at the age of 35. Was this a random act of violence, or an extension of the totalitarian crackdown on artists and dissidents rife throughout South America at that time? The movie is not just a political mystery thriller and Tenório was much more than a victim. A prodigious jazz samba player, he emerged with the blooming of Bossa Nova in the 1960s, allowing Trueba to celebrate the sounds of João Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, and Paulo Moura (several of whom also share their memories of the pianist).
Jeff Goldblum voices the character of an American journalist who sets out to write a book about the Brazilian music of the period but who becomes obsessed with Tenório’s story (a stand-in for Treuba himself), while Mariscal’s Rotoscope animation adopts strikingly different hues for different timeframes: rich and saturated in the nightclub scenes, near monochrome when the authorities detain and torture Tenório.
A loving, haunting tribute.
Sheri Linden, Hollywood Reporter
Fernando Treuba & Javier Mariscal
Jeff Goldblum, Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Joao Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes
Spain/France
2023
In English, Portuguese and Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Nano Arrieta, Fabien Westerhoff
Screenwriter
Fernando Trueba
ANIM
Carlos León Sancha
Editor
Arnau Quiles
Also Playing
Giant
This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.
Super Happy Forever
This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.
Rebel Without a Cause
Kids turned bad in the 1950s -- and their newly comfortable middle-class parents couldn't understand why. Ray points the finger right back at them: "You're tearing me apart!" rails Jim Stark (James Dean), speaking for his generation.