The Age of the Earth preceded by Di Cavalcante

Director: Glauber Rocha

1980 / 168min / DCP

Inspired by the tragic murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rocha’s mad, messianic, wildly experimental swan song, concerning the opposition of a quartet of Third World Christs to a rapacious American industrialist, was a lightning rod of controversy when it premiered at the 1980 Venice Film Festival, a year before its director’s death. Said Rocha of the film: “The Age of the Earth is the decomposition of the narrative sequence without losing the infrastructural discourse that is supposed to materialize the most representative signs of the Third World. The film offers a symphony of images and sound or is an anti-symphony that puts the essential problems into the background. This film can only be classified in this way: He is my portrait next to the portrait of Brazil.” Preceded by Di Cavalcante, Rocha’s documentary on the funeral of the trailblazing Rio-born painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.