Le dur apprentissage de la vie d’un jeune garçon plongé dans le quotidien infernal de la misère des quartiers pauvres de São Paulo.

Livrée à la misère, une bande de gamins erre dans les rues de São Paulo, multipliant les petits larcins jusqu’au jour où la police débarque pour effectuer une grande rafle vers des centres de redressement. Pixote, est l’un de ces enfants. La première nuit de son séjour, marquée par le viol d’un de ses camarades d’infortune, constitue le début d’une longue suite de brimades. Chaque jour apporte ainsi son lot de violence et de cruauté, la direction du centre n’étant d’ailleurs pas la dernière à avoir les mains sales.
Quand il retourne dans les rues de Sao Paulo, l’apprentissage de la violence a fait de lui un dangereux délinquant.

Interdit aux moins de 12 ans.

Scénario : Hector Babenco, Jorge Durán et José Louzeiro

Avec :

Fernando RAMOS DA SILVA (Pixote), Jorge Julião (Lilica), Gilberto Moura (Dito), Edilson Lino (Chico), Zenildo Oliveira Santos (Fumaça), Claudio Bernardo (Garatao)
Image : Rodolfo Sánchez
Montage : Luiz Elias
Musique : John Neschling
Coproduction : Embrafilme, HB Filmes


DVD disponible (Carlotta Films)


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DIFFUSION sur ARTE (France/Allemagne)
> Mercredi 03 août 2005 à 22.50

1981 | FESTIVAL DE LOCARNO | LOCARNO, Suisse |
> LEOPARD D’ARGENT

About Brazil’s abandoned children.

It is a docu-drama in the tradition of Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, so relentless in its depiction of life in the institutions and on the streets of So Paulo that it defies pity. Babenco takes representiatives of Brazil’s deprived children (of whom three million are homeless) and presents their bleak lives using actual kids from the city’s shanty towns. The hero is Pixote, a young-old boy, dragged into a police station after a round-up and sent to a reform school run by an outwardly kindly but totally corrupt regime. Pixote witnesses rape, beatings and death, which are unflinchingly portrayed as an everyday occurrence largely ignored – possibly condoned – by the authorities. In one case his friend is beaten to death by the police themselves. He escapes, turns to theft and becomes part of a gang living off a prostitute and, eventually, a killer. He’s 10, with no future.

Due to the impressive interpretation by Fernando Ramos da Silva (10 years old at the time of filming; assassinated by the police in 1987), discovered in the suburbs of São Paulo, the film was a worldwide success receiving various international prizes.
It was considered best foreign film by the Los Angeles and New York Art Critics Associations (1981) and Marília Pêra was considered Actress of the Year by the U.S. National Society of Cinema Critics. At the end of the eighties, PIXOTE was chosen one of the decades most remarkable films by the « American Film » magazine together with Akiro Kurosawa’s RAN and Ingmar Bergman’s FANNY & ALEXANDRE.


DVD available (Carlotta Films)

Sobre as crianças abandonadas do Brasil.

Graças à interpretação inesquecível de Fernando Ramos da Silva (10 anos na época do filme; assassinado pela polícia em 1987), descoberto no subúrbio de São Paulo, o filme foi um sucesso mundial e recebeu vários prêmios internacionais. Pela Associação dos Críticos de Los Angeles e Nova York, foi considerado o melhor filme estrangeiro (1981) e Marília Pêra recebeu menção de melhor atriz do ano pela Sociedade Nacional dos Críticos de Cinema nos Estados Unidos. No final dos anos 80, PIXOTE foi eleito pela revista « American Film » como um dos filmes mais marcantes da década, atrás de RAN, de Akira Kurosawa, e FANNY & ALEXANDER, de Ingmar Bergman.