Río de Janeiro, 1932 Joaquim Pedro de Andrade studied Nuclear Physics and worked in that specialty for quite some time. Since his college years, though, he joined some movie clubs with the likes of Saranceni, Hirzsman and Diegues, youngsters that a few years later left their footprint in the Brazilian filmmaking industry. He cut his moviemaking teeth as an assistant to Santos Pereira in the film "Reveliao em Vila Rica" (1958), only to shoot some documentaries later on. Back in the 1970s, he attended the Slade School of Arte of London and moved to New York together with the Maysle Brothers. He met once again with his old friends from the college-time movie club. Andrade and his former classmates embarked on a joint project entitled "Cinco vezes favela" under the sponsorship of the left-wing National Students League. Andrade's episode nabbed several international prizes and awards. Some experts believe that project marked the onset of the Cinema Novo Movement that was very much in sync with what was going on in the realm of moviemaking worldwide. After that project, Andrade's career evolved dramatically with "O padre e a moça" and several short-length films. In the late 70s, he managed to pull off an ambitious project (Macunaima), a movie that portrays an exciting reflection about the way a country can gobble up one of its own children. Regardless of the heavy bowdlerization the movie was subjected to, it became a blockbuster both in and out of the country, let alone the many awards it grabbed. Andrade seized on the momentum that smash hit had given him to put the Cinema Novo Movement back on the front burner. His later years also revolved around a halo of good fortune as he turned to the high-profile political developments that had swept Brazil in the 18th century (Os confidentes) or the tribulations of family daily life (Guerra Conjugal), just to name but a couple of his most representative works. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade passed away on September 10, 1988 in Rio de Janeiro.