Belisario Franca

Belisario Franca was born in the 60's in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, during one of his country's darkest times. He grew up under a military dictatorship that heavily controlled every facet of society. From that experience grew his desire to show the reality of life as it is experienced by the people living it, unmediated by power or ideology: real people telling their own stories and, often, their fight to transform them. Since 1980, he has filmed several feature documentaries and documentary series and received multiple awards. In "Beyond the Sea", awarded the "Best Documentary Series" by the International Documentary Association in 1999, he traces the impact of Portuguese colonization in more than 11 countries around the world. In "Xavante Strategy" awarded "Best Creation of Art and Media" by the United Nations Film Festival in 2007, Franca presents the story of 8 Native American Brazilians from the Xavantes tribe that are sent to "the big city" to learn the ways of white European culture and return to their tribe to help their people survive and preserve their ancient culture. It is a film about the human struggle to maintain cultural identity in a hostile environment. "Eternal Amazon" (2012) is the most extensive documentary ever made about the sustainable economy in the Amazon Region. It goes into the most remote parts of the largest tropical forest in the world to find men and women who are fighting for the tenuous balance to keep the forest alive and healthy. It was screened in more than 27 festivals around the world, such as The Green Screens Film Society of Lincoln Center, Brooklyn Film Festival, and the Environmental International Film Festival in Paris. Franca's most recent film, "Boy 23 - The Forgotten Boys of Brazil" follows an historian's investigation into bricks branded with the Nazi swastika recently uncovered in a small town in Brazil. "Boy 23" reveals the story of 50 adopted Black boys who were victims of a criminal eugenics project carried out by a group of Nazi-sympathizing Brazilian elites. Two of the living survivors tell their story with consequences reaching into the present and future of Brazil and, increasingly, the wider world. "Boy 23 - The Forgotten Boys of Brazil" was theatrically screened in Brazil for 23 weeks.