Entranced Earth takes place in a fictitious Latin American country – Eldorado. Its main hero is Paulo Martins, a young idealist who takes his first steps in politics. Soon his illusions are dispelled and he starts to fight against his former friends – the current prime minister Felipe Vieira and president Porfirio Diaz. In the film, verse is intertwined with dialogues, and music consists of a surprising mixture of songs, choirs, symphonies, punctuated with potent silence or the sounds of machine gun fire. The film received the FIPRESCI award at the Cannes International Film Festival in 1967 and Grand Prix at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1967.
The film Entranced Earth by Glauber Rocha was chosen by Rodrigo Garcia.
GLAUBER ROCHA (1939–1981) was the representative of one of the most significant trends in contemporary Brazilian cinematography – Cinema Nuovo. Drawing on Italian neorealism, the young film-makers focused on showing the social problems troubling their country. In addition to Entranced Earth (1967), Rocha’s most important works include Black God, White Devil (1964) and Antonio des Mortes (1969). The director left Brazil in 1969 during the dictatorship of the Brazilian junta. He worked in Europe and Northern Africa until the end of his life.