Beyond Ipanema

Everything we know about Brazil we learned from City of God (feral children, guns, shanty towns) or profiles on the Travel Channel (breasts, buns, beach). But catch a couple of screenings at this year’s 14th annual Brazilian Film Festival, and the country appears mired in the same domestic angst as our own bedrooms. The festival opens this Thursday at the Colony Theatre with the two films that won last year’s BRAFF competition. At 9 p.m., see “Sildenafil,” a short film where a wife force-feeds Viagra to her hubby, who suffers all the side effects without any of the hard-ons. In the feature film that follows, In Therapy, a bored woman named Mercedes enters therapy only to have it screw up every detail of her life. As the festival screens 30 Brazilian films, we’re sure that country’s thongs and baile funk orgies will turn up somewhere. Among those showing all week at the Colony is a tribute to actress Andrea Beltrão, with a screening of her film, Time of Fear. There’ll be additional films screening at Broward’s Cinema Paradiso. BRAFF closes August 21 at the Lincoln Theatre (541 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach) with an awards ceremony and a concert by Brazilian singer-songwriter Maria Gadú, who appears on the soundtrack of festival film Stolen Dreams. Opening-night tickets are free; otherwise, film tickets cost $6 to $10, and closing-night tickets cost $40.
Fri., Aug. 13, 9 p.m., 2010