Tropicália

“Tropicalia…wasn’t a style or movement as much as an atmosphere, a rush of youthful, cosmopolitan, liberationist optimism that broke over Brazil like a sun shower and soaked into everything: art, music, fashion, film, theater, literature.”—New York Times

Taking the audience on a tour through the sounds, image, and history of one of Brazil’s most iconic cultural movements, Tropicália shows the sparks that can fly when art, culture, and politics collide. Musicians, artists, and filmmakers across Brazil reclaimed the country’s “cannibalistic” past and incorporated a diverse range of influences—rock and roll, bossa nova, African, American, European, old, new, regional, and urban—to create something uniquely Brazilian and of the moment. With interludes to discuss the breadth of the movement, the film focuses on the shockwaves happening in the music scene. In particular, the film focuses in on three years (1967–69) in the life of Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, years in which they became generational lightning rods—getting censored and banned by the military dictatorship, and eventually jailed and exiled, for their music. (87 mins., DCP)