Arquivo / 49ª mostra

The first feature film by Brazilian director Neville d’Almeida, "Jardim de Guerra" tells the story of a young man with no prospects, played by actor Joel Barcelos. He falls in love with a filmmaker and is unjustly accused of terrorism by a right-wing organisation which arrests and tortures him. In 1969, the film inaugurated the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. In spite of some festival screenings, when Neville sent a copy to be approved and commercially screened, the film suffered countless cuts and was ultimately censored by the Brazilian military regime. The original copy, with no cuts, which was kept by the National Archive in Rio de Janeiro, had its first public screening in São Paulo at the 42nd Mostra, in 2018. The film’s plot was inspired by the book "Kaos" (1962), by Jorge Mautner, who cowrote the screenplay along with Neville, Guará Rodrigues and Rogério Sganzerla.