Determined to escape their poverty-stricken lives, four talented young women living on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, form an all-female rap group but find their road to success is riddled with sexism, racism, and violence. One by one, they succumb to their grim realities…until they discover that out of struggle come strength, and out of strength, the courage to continue on.
Genre(s): Drama, Musical
Runtime: 90 minutes
Rating: 6.7/10 (213 votes)
Release Date: 8 September 2006
Country: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese
Company: Coração da Selva
Sound: Dolby Digital
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some thematic material, language and brief violence.
Director(s): Tata Amaral
Producer(s):
Tata Amaral – producer
Geórgia Costa Araújo – producer
Guel Arraes – associate producer
Andrea Barata Ribeiro – co-producer
Bel Berlinck – co-producer
Rachel Braga – assistant producer
Fernando Meirelles – co-producer
Moa Ramalho – executive producer
Writer(s):
Tata Amaral – writer
Roberto Moreira – writer
Cast:
Negra Li – Preta
Cindy Mendes – Lena (Maria Madalena)
Leilah Moreno – Barbarah
Jacqueline Simão – Mayah (as Quelynah)
Chico Andrade – Duda
Barão – Barão
Adielson Bonam – Apresentador do show
Odara Carvalho – Roberta
Leona Cavalli –
Nathalye Cris – Emília
Music: Beto Villares
Tagline: All It Takes Is Everything You Have.
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I have just seen this movie at the Toronto International Film Festival.What a beauty! Everything works in this Brazilian movie. Script,Direction, Cinematography, Acting, the incredible score, just to name afew. The lives of the young women in the outskirts of São Paulo aredepicted with captivating and breathtaking images along withoutstanding performances. This is the kind of movie you leave thetheatre with a sense of how powerful film-making can be. I went to seethis movie without any knowledge of what the plot was going to be. Fromthe very first frame I was brought into the lives of the maincharacters and couldn't let them go even after the credits had stoppedrolling. Tata Amaral has certainly placed herself on the A-list ofBrazilian movie makers.
Wow, is this movie bad. First of all, the plot: there is none. The bandgoes from four girls to one as a series of script contrivances — thetwo involving street violence being especially poorly presented –combine to make them the single unluckiest backup girl group inBrazilian history. The script is just very immature: each character hasexactly one emotion, or one character trait, or one purpose to serve inthe story. You know exactly what's going to happen, and even if youdidn't you simply wouldn't care. The lead has a nice screen presenceand all the girls can sing beautifully, but "Antonia" will beremembered, at least by this viewer, only for a set of Englishsubtitles so consistently awful I was sure they had to be intended as aparody. We're talking "Kung Fu" dubbing here…