INTEGRACÃO RACIAL

A series of interviews on the problems of racial integration in Brazil. We hear the black from the National School of the Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro. We hear a young white woman from the bay of Guanabara who says that she would never marry a black or a mulatto. Racism exists in Brazil. White athletes talk in defence of black athletes. Bar owners talk. A mulatta night club entertainer says that she does not care for Argentineans. A woman from Copacabana has adapted a black baby and talks of his intelligence of how he has adapted to the world of the whites. We then move the set to São Paulo, where there is the Japanese community of the Liberdade district. The film ends with a meeting of the metal workers' union.

"It was shot in 1963 and finished in 1964. The film was commissioned by the ministry, i.e. the Itamarati. Gustavo Dahl finished the editing, and the film would have gone over well with the original ministry. However, the new directors of the ministry who came in with the coup d'état rejected it. So, I had to keep the film myself. I could not finish it exactly like I wanted to, but I like it a lot." (Paulo César Saraceni)

"Saraceni is a filmmaker with insight and sensitivity, one of the rare artists of contemporary cinema. He has the gift of photographing the essence of the real. This is the legacy of Rossellini, which Saraceni does not deny, but, on the contrary, acknowledges as a stimulating influente." (Glauber Rocha)

Director and screenplay: Paulo César Saraceni:
Director of photography: David Neves.
Editor: Gustavo Dahl.
Sound: Arnaldo Jabor.
Production company: Paulo César Saraceni, Arnaldo Carrillho, Itamarati, Património Histórico.