Cinemateca Brasileira

Nitrato expresses the ambiguities and contradictions of the Cinemateca Brasileira. The film deals with the richness of its collection, the recognition of international entities, and explores what its relationship to the general public was like. Nitrato also portrays the neglect with which the institution is treated, as seen in how precarious its building infrastructure is, how politicians neglected to communicate with the institution’s staff, and the aftermath of another fire in the building.

Mixing new images to existing São Paulo movies takes, the documentary presents the city from the perspective of five main attributes: transformation, anonymity, crowd, precariousness and dimension.

In 1967, Luiz Sergio Person and Jean-Claude Bernardet wrote the screenplay for Hora dos Ruminantes ("The Hour of the Ruminants"), which was never filmed. Os Ruminantes ("The Ruminants") tells this story—about Brazilian cinema in the 1960s and 70s and the political issues surrounding it.