DATEBOOK PICK<\/p>\n
Brazilian cinema is back on the world stage<\/a> after first Walter Salles’ 2024 drama “I’m Still Here<\/a>” then last year’s art house hit, Kleber Mendon\u00e7a Filho’s “The Secret Agent<\/a>,” scored best picture Oscar nominations in consecutive years.<\/p>\n More Information<\/p>\n San Francisco Brazilian Film Festival: Thursday-Sunday, Sept. 24-27. $20 per program. Vogue Theater, 3290 Sacramento St., S.F. www.cinemabrazil.org<\/a><\/p>\n Now, as if on cue, the first San Francisco Brazilian Film Festival has arrived at the Vogue Theater for a deeper dive into this fascinating culture’s worldview.<\/p>\n “I built this festival independently because I wanted to bring Brazilian cinema to San Francisco in a way that goes beyond the Brazilian community – to introduce Bay Area audiences to the incredible filmmakers, stories, cultures and voices coming out of Brazil,” Cinema Brazil founder Zanna de Sant’Anna told the Chronicle.<\/p>\n The festival opens ambitiously with “I Only Rest in the Storm,” a 3\u00bd-hour epic about a Portuguese environmental engineer who accepts a position in Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, where the experience proves eye-opening.<\/p>\n It closes with a 4K restoration of Salles’ 1998 masterpiece “Central Station,” in which a bitter middle-aged woman (Oscar-nominated Fernanda Montenegro) forms an unlikely bond with a boy after his mother is killed.<\/p>\n Also included in the 16-film lineup – 11 features, five shorts – is “Gugu’s World,” about another young boy with a challenging childhood, which is Brazil’s official entry into the 2027 Academy Awards.<\/p>\n Subscribe<\/p>\n There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.<\/a><\/p>\n