Ilha das Flores

video Brazil literature

It's not only because this film was made in my hometown, Porto Alegre. Or because I enjoyed attending one of its makers' classes at the University. But Ilha das Flores has impacted me from the first time I've seen it. I have used it in a couple workshops and courses, and like to think of it as a brazilian predecessor to cleaner accounts such as Annie Leonard's The Story of Stuff. Comment added on 04/10/2019.

From Wikipedia:

"Isle of Flowers" (Portuguese: "Ilha das Flores") is a 1989 Brazilian short film by Jorge Furtado. It tracks the path of a tomato from garden to dump with the help of a monotone voiceover and a collection of bizarre images. While a very humorous film, the message it delivers about how human beings treat each other is anything but such. The director himself has stated that the film was inspired by the works of Kurt Vonnegut and Alain Resnais, among others. The film has been denounced as "materialistic" because one of its early credits displays the phrase "God doesn't exist". Nevertheless, critic Jean-Claude Bernardet defined Isle of Flowers "a religious film", and the Brazilian National Bishop Confederation awarded the film with the Margarida de Prata (Silver Daisy), calling it "the best Brazilian film of the year" in 1990. In 1995, Isle of Flowers was chosen by the European critics as one of the 100 most important short films of the century.

Watch the film:

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