Biografía:
Sao Paulo, 1928 Literature, Movie and political life marks his youth, actively participating in the Communist Party studying at the same time at the Sao Paulo School of Law . He collaborated as a film critic for the newspapers “Journal do Brasil” and “Diario Carioca” . He reflects all this early experiences in his short movie “Juventude” (1950). Afterwards, he will direct new short movies and will irregularly work as an assistant director apart from given movie classes by the of the 60s at the University of Brasilia. Considered as a promoter of the “Cinema Novo”, and the father of the renovation in the Brazilian, Pereira dos Santos directs “Rio, Quarenta Graus” (1955), a work of a great social content, very realistic images, filmed in natural stages in which he reflected stories of misery and the degradation of characters born in the poor neighbors of the city. The importance of the movie lies in the fact that for the first time in the Brazilian film industry a whole gallery of characters appears which have a great burden of social critics, a fact that compelled a censure of the movie for a year. In his following career he will continue to insist in stories full of poverty and dramatic atmosphere specially emphasizing “Dry Lives” (1963), a huge retelling of severe and realistic images. The intellectual atmosphere that there is in Brazil in the 60s affects all his work, hermetic and allegoric in part, which has the intention to avoid the strong control that the government exercised towards current themes . that’s why he deals with issues so different such as the historic facts or science fiction, living a clear prove of the conditions that avoids the creative freshness of his first movies.
