A Century of Brazilian Documentary Film

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive study of Brazilian documentary filmmaking, covering roughly a century of material. In the 1920s, these films were relatively simple and depicted national festivals, commemorations of historical events, the country's natural resources, as well as its modernization of the city landscape. Over time, however, they developed to cover a variety of topics and perspectives with a greater complexity when necessary. Beginning with No paâis das Amazonas, one of thefirst films to document the Amazonian rainforest and its indigenous inhabitants, Sadlier examines the use of documentary films for propaganda purposes, the repression or destruction of certain films during dictatorial regimes, how they could be used for social criticism or to bring to light notable individuals, and the use of modern technology to bring the possibilities of documentary filmmaking into the hands of everyone through social media. Moving more or less chronologically, she is also able to use the films as a way to explore a century of Brazilian history and culture--