CINEMA, ASPIRINS AND VULTURES International Feature Competition

Developed at the first Sundance Film Institute Screenwrlting Workshop in Brazil, CINEMA, ASPIRIN AND VULTURES won the Prix de Education Nationale at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.

Set in the dry, arid, barren landscape of the Northeastern Brazilian hinterland, where vultures circle above. Two men meet in the dessert: Johann, a German who has escaped from the war, and Ranulpho, a Brazilian leaving the drought that haunts the region. Driving from village to village, they show a film to the locals who have never before experienced cinema in order to sell a brand new “miracle” medicine. Continuing across the dusty roads, they search for new horizons in their lives as their friendship deepens.

Both actors are well-trained stage actors and their craft is etched with a quiet delicacy into their performances. With lilting Brazilian music from the ’30s and ’40s, and gorgeous blanched photography invoking a feeling of almost melting into the heat, the quietly assured director Marcelo Gomes combines naturalistic and surrealistic elements to create a wholly mesmerizing film.