- The movie series “Premiere Brazil!” will be returning to New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in July. Titles include three award winners at the most recent Rio de Janeiro Film Festival: Helena Solberg’s Diary of a Provincial Girl, Lúcia Murat’s Almost Brothers, and Marcos Prado’s Estamira.
Featuring 3 Rio de Janeiro Film Festival award winners, Brazilian cinema series ‘Premiere Brazil!’ returns to MoMA in July
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will be presenting the third edition of the Brazilian cinema series “Premiere Brazil!” from July 1–10.
Notable titles include the following award winners at last year’s Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival:
Veteran Helena Solberg’s Audience Award-winning period drama Diary of a Provincial Girl / Vida de Menina is based on the real-life diaries of a young woman, Alice Dayrell Caldeira Brant (1880–1970), who spent her adolescence in late 19th-century Diamantina, a diamond-mining town located in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais and currently known for its Brazilian Baroque architecture. Under the pen name Helena Morley, the diaries were published in 1942. In the cast: Ludmila Dayer as Morley, in addition to Daniela Escobar and Dalton Vigh. Screenplay by Solberg and Elena Soarez.
Set in Rio – and, to some extent, reminiscent of Fernando Meirelles’ multiple Oscar nominee City of God – Best Director Lúcia Murat’s Almost Brothers / Quase Dois Irmãos is a thoughtful socially conscious drama that will have a week’s run at MoMA. In the cast: Werner Schünemann, Caco Ciocler, Antônio Pompêo, Best Actor Flávio Bauraqui, Maria Flor, and Marieta Severo. Screenplay by Murat and Paulo Lins.
Marcos Prado’s Best Documentary winner Estamira is centered on a mentally handicapped 63-year-old woman who makes her home at a landfill in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
Carmen Miranda remembered
According to MoMA, “Premiere Brazil!” will also be celebrating the centenary of Carmen Miranda’s birth with a screening of Adhemar Gonzaga’s hard-to-find 1936 musical Alô Alô Carnaval!. (If so, the celebration is a bit early, as Miranda was born in 1909.)*
Featuring Brazilian radio and stage musical (“revue”) stars in a format akin to that of Paramount’s The Big Broadcast and its sequels – the flimsy plot is an excuse for the musical numbers – Alô Alô Carnaval! will be introduced by independent curator Fabiano Canosa and by director Adhemar Gonzaga’s daughter.
Alô Alô Carnaval! is supposed to be Carmen Miranda’s sole fully extant pre-Hollywood movie.
* MoMA’s Alô Alô Carnaval! screening should actually be in honor of Carmen Miranda’s death of a heart attack half a century ago, on Aug. 5, 1955, in Beverly Hills. (Coincidentally, Diary of a Provincial Girl filmmaker Helena Solberg also directed the 1995 documentary Carmen Miranda: Bananas is My Business.)
Pelé in person
More on “Premiere Brazil!”:
- Former soccer star Pelé is scheduled to introduce a documentary about his life and times.
- Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Silva will not be in attendance, though he is the topic of two other documentaries to be presented in the series.
“Premiere Brazil!” was put together by MoMA’s Department of Film and Media Curator Jytte Jensen and Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival Director Ilda Santiago.
Most “Premiere Brazil!” entries will be introduced by their respective directors. All movies are in Portuguese with English subtitles.
“Brazilian Cinema Series to Screen Rare Carmen Miranda” notes
Carmen Miranda is the topic of a comprehensive exhibition at Rio de Janeiro’s Museum of Modern Art.
Ludmila Dayer Diary of a Provincial Girl image: RioFilme | Elo Studios.
“Brazilian Cinema Series to Screen Rare Carmen Miranda” last modified in December 2025.