A frenzied dance of political struggle in a masterpiece that challenged the military dictatorship. Russian premiere of a restored copy in the programme The Rebellion of Dreams. Directed by Glauber Rocha.
Entranced Earth
- Date:
- 8 Feb 2026,
18:00–21:00
- Age restrictions
- 18+
Terra em Transe
1967, Glauber Rocha
Brazil
106 minutes, Portuguese with Russian subtitles
Starring: Jardel Filho, Paulo Autran, José Lewgoy, Glauce Rocha
T
Chaos reigns in the fictional Latin American republic of Eldorado. Paulo Martins is a poet, journalist, and activist who helps elevate first one politician, then another. He begins his career under the wing of the ultra-right conservative senator Diaz, but soon turns away from him and rises to the heights of power alongside the populist Vieira. At every turn, Paulo believes he can do good for the people; yet each disappointment—both in others and in himself—pushes him away from politics and back toward poetry.
Shot from Entranced Earth, 1967
One of the later entries in Brazil’s short-lived Cinema Novo movement, applying New Wave pyrotechnics to popular and political mythology.
— Dave Kehr, The Chicago Reader
In 1967, Brazil’s military dictatorship was only beginning to consolidate its power (the machinery of censorship, torture, and murder would reach full force only by the end of the following year). Nevertheless, Entranced Earth was banned by the authorities even before its release—and the ban was only lifted after an international scandal. Rocha’s film went on to screen at Cannes and Locarno, winning awards at both major festivals and establishing itself as one of the most powerful political films of its time.
Today, the very possibility of making such a film under an authoritarian regime seems astonishing. Though Brazil is called Eldorado here, the targets of Rocha’s fury are instantly recognisable. The director spares no one: neither the right, openly fascistic in its rhetoric; nor the left, ready for any compromise; nor the bewildered intelligentsia, repeatedly betraying its own ideals. The audience is also not spared. Rocha hurls viewers into a vortex of ideas, and passions, from which one emerges with a far more sober view of the brutal carnival of high politics.
“Entranced Earth” won the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and the Grand Prix at the Locarno Film Festival (1967).
