What films influenced City of God?

Name: City of God
Released: 2002

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BRAZIL · 2002

City of God

Fernando Meirelles

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Synopsis

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

Year2002

CountryBrazil

DirectorFernando Meirelles

MovementBrazilian Contemporary

Films with Similar Energy

Cinematic Threads

City of God is the most internationally visible Brazilian film since Cinema Novo — and it carries that tradition's political commitment alongside its kinetic energy. Glauber Rocha's Cinema Novo manifesto demanded films about Brazilian poverty made with Brazilian aesthetic energy. Meirelles answered that call four decades later. But the direct ancestor is Pixote — Héctor Babenco's 1980 film about street children in São Paulo, which is rawer, more devastating, and less widely seen. Pixote is on MUBI.

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Films it influenced

Black Panther 2018 · Ryan Coogler Children of Men 2006 · Alfonso Cuarón Baby Driver 2017 · Edgar Wright

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