Black Orpheus

Director: Marcel Camus

1959 / 107min / 35mm

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Camus’s international arthouse smash transposes the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice to the favelas of Rio de Janeiro and sets the proceedings shimmying along to a bossa nova beat courtesy composers Antônio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfá. Intoxicating in its zestful, go-for-the-gusto vitality, with Breno Mello charming in the title role and Marpessa Dawn every bit as appealing as the ill-fated beloved he’s determined to follow into the underworld. “An almost irrationally infectious retelling of the Orpheus-Eurydice chestnut set during carnival and feverish with hip-swiveling hustle, exploding local color, and sleeve-worn heart.” —The Village Voice

Distributor: Janus Films

Part of Classical Cinema