U.S. audiences will finally have their chance to see the Brazilian documentary A Jangada de Welles (The Welles Raft) at three festivals in the coming weeks.
The film was selected for the official competitions of the 14th Brazilian Film Festival of New York and the 24th Brazilian Film Festival of Miami, as well as the Montana International Film Festival. (The festivals begin their runs in mid September and continue into October.)
The 75-minute documentary looks at Welles’ aborted wartime South American movie, It’s All True; filming in Fortaleza, the drowning death of national hero Manuel “Jacare” Olimpio Meira during the shoot; the repressive Getúlio Varga regime; and the Ceará fishermen’s struggle for labor rights and housing.
A Jangada de Welles was written and directed by Brazilian filmmakers Petrus Cariry and Firmino Holanda.
The Fortaleza-born Cariry has made such movies as Quando o Vento Sopra and O Grão. Holanda is a professor of film studies at Universidade Federal do Ceará and author of the book Orson Welles no Ceará. The pair collaborated in 2004 on O Cidadão Jacaré (Citizen Jacaré), which looked at the 61-day journey of the four jangadeiros.
A Jangada de Welles had its world premiere on October 26, 2019 at the 43rd annual International Film Festival in São Paulo and has been shown at film festivals in South American and Europe.
The soundtrack to the documentary is available on Amazon Music.
More information on the documentary is available on the filmmaker’s official Facebook page, facebook.com/ajangadadewelles
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