O QUATRILHO AFI Fest All-Night Movie Marathon: Left Wing Versus Right Wing

“Quatrilho” is the name of a card game which requires its players to betray their partners
in order to win. At the beginning of this century, in a small Italian immigrant community
in the southernmost region of Brazil, two couples will incur the wrath of their church and
community in their search for security. Yet out of betrayal will come freedom, and out of
freedom will come a hard-won happiness. Based on a true story, 0 Quatrilho is the
newest film from Lucy and Luiz Carlos Barreto, whose 60 films in more than 35 years of
producing include the early, seminal New Cinema films Vidas Secas and Memoirs of
Prison, both directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, as well as Carlos Diegues’ Bye Bye
Brazil and the Brazilian box office champion Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands-which
was directed by their son, Bruno Barreto. Keeping it all in the family, the director of
0 Ouatrilho is son Fabio Barreto, who has been making features since 1981. Says Lucy
Barreto of O Ouatrilho: “The story of those immigrants is that of a country that made
good, thanl<s to a lot of hard work. The film also shows how one can indeed fight
oppression and prejudice. Finally, the film touches on the question of guiltless love, and
what could be more up-to-date than that?"