Memories of Prison

In this universally acclaimed film, dos Santos recreates the memoirs of Graciliano Ramos, a celebrated Brazilian author (of Barren Lives, among other works). The left-leaning intellectual is arrested during a sweep of dissidents under the Getúlio Vargas dictatorship of the 1930s. As Ramos is taken on a journey through Brazilian prisons—and, consequently, on a tour of underground political histories and ideologies—he discovers how imprisonment can turn him into a more committed human being. (185 mins., 35mm)