Saturday, July 31 @ 4:00PM

DAUGHTERS OF THE WIND
Directed by Joel Zito Araujo, Daughters of the Wind, during its production, featured the largest cast of black actors ever seen in a Brazilian film. The story follows the complex relationship between a set of sisters, mothers, and daughters; a family funeral serves as a starting point for a series of flashbacks from the 1960s and '70s. Though general sexism and gender stereotyping are among the causes for the tension between them, the social and political remnants of slavery present an even more insidious conflict to be dealt with. The film includes Milton Goncalves, Ruth de Souza. By Joel Zito Araujo, Brazil, 2004, 87mins, drama in Portuguese with English subtitles.

"At one point in "Daughters of the Wind," the first fictional feature by the Brazilian documentary maker Joel Zito Araújo, a young black woman, washing her grandfather's hands, tells him a story about how the races of the world came to have skin of different colors. His anger at the racist implications of the tale, which equates dark skin with dirt, takes her by surprise, and her bewilderment and hurt feelings capture this family melodrama's political theme. For much of Brazil's history, its national mythology held that the country did not have a race problem, even as its darker citizens were subjected to routine social and economic discrimination. Mr. Araújo has assembled a multigenerational cast of talented black actors to explore, among other things, the obstacles facing black performers in Brazil's film and television industries. Race may be the film's central theme, but this sexy, sometimes ungainly soap opera also looks at sexual mores, familiar relationships and the cultural differences between urban and rural Brazil." — A. O. Scott, The New York Times