Seven years ago, one night in May, Rafael came home from work to find that people he did not know had come looking for him. He fled without looking back—from that moment on living as though that night never ended. One evening, around a campfire near a factory, Rafael recounts his story to a stranger who had a similar experience. Rafael’s personal story thus becomes part of the collective testimony of a nation oppressed by poverty, police repression, and institutional corruption. Reflecting the storytelling and style of his previous film Araby, Affonso Uchôa’s Seven Years in May is a poetic and political fable structured around the often unheard words of Brazil’s working class. 

Screening with:
Ava Yvy Vera: The Land of the Lightning People / Ava Yvy Vera: A terra do povo do raio
Genito Gomes, Valmir Gonçalves Cabreira, Jhonn Nara Gomes, Jhonaton Gomes, Edina Ximenes, Dulcídio Gomes, Sarah Brites, and Joilson Brites, Brazil, 2017, 52m
Guarani with English subtitles
Ava Yvy Vera is the first film made by a group of indigenous filmmakers of the Kaiowa-Guarani community in Mato Grosso do Sul. The film combines documentation, reenactment, and storytelling to recall the murder of chief Nisio Gomes. In 2011, he was killed by a group of heavily armed men hired by farmers wanting to evict the Kaiowa-Guarani community from their ancestral land. 

Playing as part of Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers, December 6-11. See showtimes & get tickets.