Part of Staff Picks and programmed by Cody, who says “Using non-actors and real street children (including the tragic lead, Fernando Ramos da Silva) PIXOTE, will punch you in the gut in a way very few films can or will…. True, transgressive art.”
With its bracing blend of unflinching realism and aching humanity, Héctor Babenco’s electrifying look at lost youth fighting to survive on the bottom rung of Brazilian society helped put the country’s cinema on the international map. Shot with documentary-like immediacy on the streets of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, PIXOTE follows an eponymous preteen runaway (the heartbreaking Fernando Ramos da Silva, whose own too-short life tragically mirrored that of his character) as he escapes a nightmarish juvenile detention center only to descend into a life of increasingly violent crime alongside a makeshift family of fellow outcasts. Balancing its shocking brutality with moments of tenderness, this stunning journey through Brazil’s underworld is an unforgettable cry from the lower depths that has influenced multiple generations of filmmakers, including Spike Lee, Harmony Korine and the Safdie brothers.
Essay: “Pixote: Out in the Streets” by Stephanie Dennison (Sep 30, 2020)
Restored DCP overseen by the World Cinema Project in collaboration with the Cineteca di Bologna.
Notes on the restoration:
Restored in 4K from the 35mm original camera negative and a first generation 35mm dupe negative preserved at the Cinemateca Brasileira. In order to minimize the overall presence of mold, particularly invasive in reels 3, 5 and 6, the camera negative was wet-gate scanned at 4K resolution, and digital restoration required considerable efforts. Missing frames in three different shots of reel 3 were replaced using the internegative.
The recently rediscovered original magnetic soundtrack, also affected by mold, with the oxide peeling off the base, was carefully repaired by Beto Ferraz, then digitized and restored by José Luiz Sasso (ABC), sound engineer for Hector Babenco in 1981. Final color grading was supervised by cinematographer Rodolfo Sánchez using a first generation vintage 35mm print as reference. (Restoration notes from the Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project)