Araby

A more fitting title for this quietly astonishing film would be «The Ballad of Cristiano, Traveller and Workingman, and is Adventures». For this is a ballad, a Brazilian folk song in film form, about a life on the road. And although dramatic events abound – crime, punishment, death, betrayal and lost love – the sidetracks, anecdotes and not least the soundtrack is what bringes this story forward. After spending some time in jail, Cristiano is forced to seek labour whereever it can be found. Working in docks, factories and orchards, and at one time even furnishing a brother, he learns that his place is at the very bottom of the ladder, while also growing more politically conscious. More than ten years later, he ends up in an industrial plant in Minas Gerais, Brazil's foremost mining province.

Cristiano keeps track of his adventures in a notebook, the discovery of which leads us into the story and ties the film's many episodes together. Seemingly downbeat and leisurly in its form, Araby is in fact rigourously economic in its storytelling and editing, with each scene containing significant details. It professes an unsentimental humanism, as well as a deep insight into the plight of working people. And there is still hope of a better tomorrow, at the next turn, next meeting, or next song. Cato Fossum

João Dumans is a producer and editor, and a scriptwriter of several feature films. Affonso Uchoa (b. 1984) directed his first short film in 2003. They have previously worked together on the film The Hidden Tiger (2014), a hybrid documentary also set in the Minas Gerais province in Brazil. Araby screened in the main competition at the Rotterdam IFF in 2017.