COMO ERA GOSTOSO O MEU FRANCÊS

This film is set in the sixteenth-century and based on the true adventures of Hans Staden, who was taken prisoner by the tupinambás. A French sailor captured by the Indians is mistaken for a Portuguese and therefore destined to be eaten. He barely saves his skin through his knowledge of artillery. Thanks to him, the Indians get the better of a rival tribe. His female companion, a girl from the tribe, does not want to run away with him at the right moment. He ends up eaten during the celebrations for the victory over the enemy tribe.

"I happened to chose and get into that subject by chance. While I would cross the bay of Guanaraba every day - and its panorama is still intact - I would think how it must have been at the time of the French. This is the way a project that was all mine originated. I was to do a film on a subject for which I was to work for four years. The story was set in the sixteenth-century, the era when the French occupied Rio de Janeiro. This fact has taken nothing away from the analysis of the impact on each other of two cultures in different stages. It might be better to phrase it as the clash between two peoples - one developed and one underdeveloped - with two different economic systems. I had to reconstruct the long-ago past and this brought me to make my personal interpretation of history. The formulation of the film is based on anthropological elements. I used ali the information available on the tupinamb` culture. My interpretation of the relations between the tupinamb` and the Europeans was very personal and evidently subject to the influences that have always affected me in regard to issues like these." (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

Director: Nelson Pereira dos Santos.
Screenplay: Nelson Pereira dos Santos, dialoghi in "tupi" Humberto Mauro.
Director of photography: Dib Lufti.
Art director: Regis Monteiro, Mara Chaves.
Editor: Carlos Alberto Camuyrano.
Music: José Rodrix.
Cast and characters: Arduíno Colassanti (il marinaio francese), Ana Maria Magalhães (la ragazza), Eduardo Imbassahy Filho, Manfredo Colassanti, José Kleber, Gabriel Arcanjo, Luiz Carlos Lacerda de Freitas, Janira Santiago, Ana Maria Miranda.
Production company: Condor Filmes, Luiz Carlos Barreto, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, K. M. Eckstein, César Thedim.