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  1. Dartmouth Libraries
  2. Research Guides
  3. Dartmouth Libraries Guides
  4. Film Studies: National Cinemas
  5. Brazil

Film Studies: National Cinemas

This guide highlights selected resources for various national cinemas.
  • Introduction
  • Streaming services
  • Afghanistan
  • Africa (General)
    • Africa, Northern
    • Africa, French speaking
    • Africa, Sub-Saharan
  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Austria
  • Benelux
  • Brazil
  • Cambodia
  • Canada
    • Quebec
  • Caribbean area
  • Chile
  • Chinese cinema
  • Colombia
  • Cuba
  • Czechia (Czech Republic)
  • France
  • Germany
  • Great Britain
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
    • Wales
  • Greece
  • Hong Kong cinema
  • Hungary
  • India
  • Indigenous films
  • Irish cinema
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • Korea
  • Latin America
  • Mexico
  • Middle East
    • Egypt
    • Iran
    • Israel
    • Turkey
  • New Zealand
  • Nigeria
  • Nordic cinema
    • Denmark
    • Finland
    • Iceland
    • Norway
    • Sweden
  • Pakistan
  • Palestine
    • Films by Director
    • Documentaries
    • Films by Title
  • Poland
  • Portugal
  • Romania
  • Russia & the Soviet Union
  • Slovakia
  • South Africa
  • South America
  • Spain
  • Switzerland
  • Taiwan
  • Thailand
  • United States
    • Puerto Rico
  • Vietnam
  • Yugoslavia & Former Yugoslav Republics
  • Transnational & diasporic cinema
  • Journals & magazines about film

Portuguese language film resource at Dartmouth

  • Portuguese language films at Dartmouth
    Portuguese-language films at Dartmouth is a website to consult and contribute reviews, ratings, and detailed information about films currently held by the Dartmouth College Library. It serves as both a gateway to the library's collection of Portuguese language film, and as a resource for students, faculty, staff, and film aficionados worldwide to exchange information and opinion about these films.

Internet resource(s)

  • Cinema do Brasil
    • Database
    • Link
    Currently, their associates are film production companies, distributors, sales agents and festivals from different parts of Brazil. Their objective is to expand the international insertion of Brazilian cinema, stimulating the co-production and distribution of films in foreign territories, and expanding business possibilities for the Brazilian film industry.

Keeping up with the journal literature

Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.

You can get the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Don't own or use a mobile device? You can still use BrowZine! It's now available in a web version. You can get to it here. The web version works the same way as the app version. Find the journals you like, create a custom Bookshelf, get ToCs and read the articles you want.

Introduction to Brazilian cinema

This page looks exclusively at Brazilian cinema. If you are interested in Portuguese film resources, please see the tab for Portugal.

Brazil’s first screening of moving images took place in Rio de Janeiro on 8 July 1896, and filmmaking equipment was introduced to the country two years later. The earliest films made locally were of ceremonies, festivals, and local scenes, though public film shows were not widespread at first because of lack of electricity. Nonetheless in the béla epoca (1908–12) over a hundred films a year were made, including the most popular film of the period, Paz de amor/Peace and Love (Alberto Botelho, 1910), and Antonio Leal’s true crime film Os estranguladores/The Stranglers (1908). Until 1912 Brazilian-made films dominated the local market, but the béla epoca came to an end as Brazilian films were forced out by imports from the USA and Europe, and local production was once again confined largely to actualities, with occasional exceptions such as the social drama Exemplo regenerador/Redeeming Example (Gilberto Ross and José Medina, 1919), a successful feature that paved the way for other films of the genre, including Fragmentos da vida/Fragments of Life (José Medina, 1929). Humberto Mauro, who was active in the 1920s and 1930s and directed a celebrated early sound film, Lábios sem beijos/Lips Without Kisses (1930), is widely regarded as the founding father of Brazil’s national cinema.   ...

Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Brazil, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 May. 2021

Searching the online catalog

You can use the subject headings below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number ranges are also included.

Please note: these are not the only call numbers, but they have the majority of items. These searches will also lead you to movie titles.

  • motion pictures brazil
    Call number range PN 1993.5 .B6 on Baker Stacks Level 4.
  • motion pictures brazil history
  • motion pictures brazilian
  • brazil in motion pictures
  • motion pictures and literature brazil
  • motion picture producers and directors brazil
  • motion pictures latin america
    Call number range PN 1993.5 .L3 on Baker Stacks Level 4.

Introductory reading(s)

  • Cover art Brazilian national cinema by Lisa Shaw; Stephanie Dennison
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .B6 S45 2007
    ISBN: 9780415338165
    Brazilian cinema is one of the most influential national cinemas in Latin America and this wide-ranging study traces the evolution of Brazilian film from the silent era to the present day, including detailed studies of more recent international box-office hits, such as Central Station (1998) and City of God (2002). Brazilian National Cinema gives due importance to traditionally overlooked aspects of Brazilian cinema, such as popular genres, ranging from musical comedies (the chanchada) to soft-core porn films (the pornochanchada) and horror films, and also provides a fresh approach to the internationally acclaimed avant-garde Cinema Novo of the 1960s. ...
  • Cine iberoamericano: los desafíos del nuevo siglo by Octavio Getino
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .L3 G458 2007
    ISBN: 9789879355411
  • Dicionário de filmes brasileiros by Antônio Leão da Silva Neto
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .B6 S53 2002
    ISBN: 9788590059523
  • Cover art Enciclopédia do cinema brasileiro by Fernão Ramos, Luiz Felipe Miranda
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .B6 E53 2000
    ISBN: 9788573590937

Selected book titles

  • Cover artBrazilian women's filmmaking: from dictatorship to democracy by Leslie Marsh
    • On Campus or VPN
    • E-Book
    Call Number: eBook
    ISBN: 9780252078736
    At most recent count, there are no fewer than forty-five women in Brazil directing or codirecting feature-length fiction or documentary films. In the early 1990s, women filmmakers in Brazil were credited for being at the forefront of the rebirth of filmmaking, or retomada, after the abolition of the state film agency and subsequent standstill of film production.
  • Cover artBrazil on screen: cinema novo, new cinema, utopia by Lúcia Nagib
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .B6 N35313 2007
    ISBN: 9781845113285
    Two periods of Brazilian film history are particularly notable for their artistic momentum: the Cinema Novo movement of the 1960s and early '70s, and the film revival from the mid 1990s onwards. What makes them especially strong, this book argues, is their utopian impulse. By adopting Utopia as a theme, as well as a method of film analysis, Lucia Nagib unveils, organises and interprets a fascinating wealth of recurrent images, which are a bridge between a cinema strongly concerned with the national project and another informed by global culture. ...
  • Cover artConsuming visions: cinema, writing, and modernity in Rio de Janeiro by Maite Conde
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .B6 C57 2012
    ISBN: 9780813932149
    Consuming Visions explores the relationship between cinema and writing in early twentieth-century Brazil, focusing on how the new and foreign medium of film was consumed by a literary society in the throes of modernization. Maite Conde places this relationship in the specific context of turn-of-the-century Rio de Janeiro, which underwent a radical transformation to a modern global city, becoming a concrete symbol of the country's broader processes of change and modernization. ...

Other library resource(s)

  • Resource logo Brazilian cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Lisa Shaw
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    ISBN: 9780199791286
    Studies of Brazilian cinema came to the fore in the 1960s and 1970s with the emergence of the avant-garde, politicized Cinema Novo, which dialogued with New Wave cinemas in Europe, particularly France, and in other parts of Latin America. Several landmark studies by scholars such as Ismail Xavier and Randal Johnson analyzed the movement in depth and remain key works. Since then, scholarship in both Portuguese and English has broadened its scope to embrace commercially oriented Brazilian films dating back to the early sound era, including popular genres (such as in the work of João Luiz Vieira, Stephanie Dennison, and Lisa Shaw), as well as the historical evolution of Brazilian cinema, and the relationship between the film industry and the state throughout the 20th century and into the new millennium. ...
  • Resource logo Digitalia film library. Brazilian cinema
    • Video
    • On Campus or VPN
    Call Number: Streaming video
    Digitalia Film Library is another streaming service to which the Library subscribes. They have several collections in their library including one for Brazilian cinema.

Finding scholarly articles and journal title(s)

Articles and other writings about Brazilian cinema can be found in many publications. Our collection includes several journals which look exclusively at Portuguese language films. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.

  • Estudos de cinema by Sociedado Brasiliera de Estudos de Cinema (SOCINE)
    • Book
    Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993 .E684 [scattered]
  • Issue cover art Significação: revista de cultura audiovisual by Universidade de São Paulo
    • Open Access Icon
    • E-Book
    Call Number: Electronic journal
    Significação – Revista de Cultura Audiovisual publishes articles, essays, reviews, and interviews dedicated to studying the media and audiovisual processes and systems by the diverse practices and ideas entailed by their processes of reflection, creation, production, and dissemination. ...
  • Resource logo Film & television literature index by EBSCO Publishing
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    Use this index to find articles about Brazilian cinema.
  • Resource logo Screen studies collection by ProQuest
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    A comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
  • Resource logo The web of science citation databases by ISI (Institute for Scientific Information)
    • On Campus or VPN
    • Database
    Call Number: Electronic resource
    The online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.

Selected movie titles

For more Brazilian movie titles in the library's online catalog.

  • Movie poster art Brava gente Brasileira by Lúcia Murat
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #2425
    Diego, a Portuguese cartographer, is sent to the New Word in 1778 to make a topographical survey of the Portuguese colonies in South America. The soldiers there have a hostile relationship with the native peoples (the Guaycuruan Indians) who are considered "uncivilized" and have "very strange" customs. While there, Diego is forced by Captain Pedro to participate in an act of violence against a helpless group of native women.
  • Cabra marcado para morrer = A man listed to die
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19340
    In 1962, the Brazilian peasant leader João Pedro Teixeira was assassinated by two gunmen hired by local landowners. Teixeira's story was being filmed as a docu-drama with Teixeira's wife, Elizabeth, playing herself, but the 1964 military coup prevented the completion of the film.
  • Colegas by Marcelo Galvão
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18780
    Three young people with Down syndrome decide to run away in search of three simple wishes: Stalone wants to see the sea, Aninha looks for a husband and Marcio needs to fly.
  • Jorge Mautner: o filho do holocausto by Pedro Bial e Heitor Alincourt
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #17514
    The Brazilian singer, violinist and writer Jorge Mautner, the son of holocaust survivors, is a something of a sensation in Brazil, having collaborated with Gaetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. This film documents his life from birth to age 17. His nanny introduced him to Candomblé; Mautner then became a precursor of the Tropicália, contributing to the construction of a Brasilian musical identity.
  • O fim e o princípio by direcão, Eduardo Coutinho
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #8641
    Starting with nothing mapped out except their base hotel, a film crew enters the state of Paraíba in northeastern Brazil in search of interesting stories and people living in the isolated rural communities. The stories are mostly told by the elderly residents and reveal a world of memories, experiences, beliefs and folk practices that are disappearing out of the community collective memory.
  • Serra Pelada by Heitor Dhalia
    • DVD
    Call Number: Jones Media DVD #18762
    The story of two friends who travel to a large gold mine, Serra Pelada (Bald Mountain) near the Amazon river.
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  • Last Updated: Jun 5, 2025 11:55 AM
  • URL: https://researchguides.dartmouth.edu/nationalcinemas
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Tags: afghanistan, africa, Arts, Australia, Austria, Benelux, Cambodia, Canada, Caribbean, China, Colombia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, film_studies, Finland, France, Francophone Africa, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indigenous films, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Netherlands, Nordic cinema, North Africa, Norway, Palestine, Poland, Puerto Rico, Slovakia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Vietnam, world_cinema, Yugoslavia

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