International Competition

A multilayered and blackly humorous dissection of the sprawling cycle of violence and corruption in modern day Brazil, the film follows the connections between a wily politician, Jader Barbalho, who uses a frog farm to steal billions of dollars; a wealthy businessman obsessed with bullet-proofing his cars; a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of mutilated kidnapping victims; and a professional kidnapper. Magrinho, the kidnapper, nonchalantly compares the economics of abduction and drug-trafficking against those of robbing banks (his former pursuit) and plainly surmises that, in Brazil, ‘You either steal with a gun or a pen.’ Shot on 35mm over five years and spiced with pulsating Latin music, film shows how political corruption and economic disparity is ruining Brazil.