Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 8:00 PM
WHAMMY!, Los Angeles
In the 1970s, a collective of artists, journalists, filmmakers, and cultural agitators from Teresina transformed Super 8, then a domestic Kodak technology, into a language of avant garde cinema. Influenced by Tropicália, Brazilian cinema de invenção, and figures such as Torquato Neto, Ivan Cardoso, and Luiz Otávio Pimentel, names like Edmar Oliveira, Xico Pereira, Dogno Içaino, Antônio Noronha, José Alencar, Carlos Galvão, Arnaldo Albuquerque, Durvalino Couto, and Haroldo Barradas created films that challenged narrative codes and the repression of the dictatorship with freedom, humor, and critique. Works such as Adão e Eva do Paraíso ao Consumo (Adam and Eve From Paradise to Consumerism, a lost film), Terror da Vermelha (The Terror of Vermelha), Aterro (Landfill), Coração Materno (Mother’s Heart), Tupy Niquim, Porenquanto (Forjustnow), David Aguiar, Miss Dora, and Um Sonho Americano (An American Dream) show how this group built a decentralized and collaborative production network between Teresina, Rio de Janeiro, Fortaleza, and Belém, using cinema as a tool of aesthetic invention and political resistance. Today this body of work is recognized as CINEMA MARGINAL PIAUIENSE, a symbol of an intense experience of experimentation, friendship, and rebellion that transformed the margins into a creative force. ## Program Two: Marginals in Rio and Fortaleza In 1971, while living in Rio de Janeiro and shortly before returning to Teresina, Torquato Neto played the role of a sex worker in drag in the pioneering gay themed film Helô e Dirce – Mangú Bangue (1971), directed by Luiz Otávio Pimentel. This production, along with Nosferato no Brasil (1971) by Ivan Cardoso, filmed even earlier that same year, had a profound impact on the young tropicalist. Neto carried these experiences and influences, such as an interest in deconstructing genre cinema and embracing underground experimentalism, back to Teresina, where he shared them with his peers. With this in mind, one of the opening films of this session is the recovered copy of Pimentel’s work. After the completion of Neto’s O Terror da Vermelha (1972), many of the filmmakers and participants from the first cycle of Cinema Marginal Piauiense left Teresina to study or work elsewhere. Durvalino Couto and PJ Cunha went to Brasília, Arnaldo Albuquerque, Carlos Galvão and Xico Pereira to Rio de Janeiro, while Nelson Nunes and José Alencar settled in Belém. Still, leaving Piauí did not mean severing ties with their origins. Wherever they were, these artists carried with them the Piauiense spirit and the passion for making playful, political and experimental cinema, shot on Super 8 and always grounded in collaboration. This session, therefore, highlights Neto’s early influences in Rio de Janeiro and follows the trajectory of the Piauiense filmmakers as they carried this energy beyond their home state, continuing to redefine Brazilian cinema through collective practice. ## The Animations of Arnaldo Albuquerque In addition to working as cinematographer on many of the films from the Cinema Marginal Piauiense cycle, Arnaldo Albuquerque also stood out as a director, as seen in this program with works such as An American Dream (1973). His creative vision, however, extended beyond live action cinema, reaching into many other forms of artisticexpression. Renowned for his talent in design, photography, and illustration—particularly in comics—Arnaldo also holds a unique place in history as the creator of the first animated films made in Piauí. Three of these pioneering works were preserved and digitized by Cinelimite in 2023. At once masterpieces of Brazilian animation and radical experiments of the counterculture, these shorts—each about three minutes long, produced between 1977 and 1980—will be screened at the opening of each session of the program. Films: VAMPIRE DELUSIONS (1980) BY **ARNALDO ALBUQUERQUE** HÊLO E DIRCE - MANGÚ BANGUE(1971) BY **LUIZ OTÁVIO PIMENTEL** THE RED SCORPION (1974) BY **CARLOS GALVÃO** FORJUSTNOW (1973) BY **CARLOS GALVÃO** TUPY NIQUIM (1974) BY **XICO PEREIRA** LANDFILL (1979) BY **DOGNO IÇAINO** This screening will feature a video introduction from **Carlos Galvão**, director of “ForJustNow” and “The Red Scorpion”. ~ 70 minutes ## 7:30 DOORS8:00 SCREENING *Screening courtesy of* *[Cinelimite](https://www.cinelimite.com/)**, a São Paulo-based non-profit organization dedicated to exhibiting, distributing, and digitizing repertory Brazilian Cinema.*