In The Tropi

A boy fights with savage tribesmen and animals on a tropical island.

In the French consulate in China, Claude Varville declares his love to the consul's wife.

"Tropical Nights" - The young violinist Alma comes to Simbali with an orchestra led by conductor Zangiacoma, hired for a series of performances at the Schomberg hotel. Both the conductor Zangiacomo and Schomberg are obsessed with Alma. One evening, when Alma is, as usual, forced to entertain the guests she meets Mr. Heyst from his island Sourabaya, where he lives in solitude. He takes Alma to his place on the island.

When "Tropical Hits" premiered on December, 2015, on National Television, it became the highest-rated documentary ever on Colombian television, with over 4 million viewers. "Hits from yesterday, today and always" is probably one of the most popular phrases known by Colombians, and its one of the phrases that follows the release of the popular December album, 14 cañonazos bailables ("14 dance music hits"), a music compilation that for 54 editions has become the thermometer of Colombian popular music. In 1960, "Discos Fuentes", the oldest record label in Colombia, decided to bet on a new way of producing music, releasing the first mixed album that combined the most important songs of the year. That first album marked a new era in the music production industry in Colombia. "It was like bringing home the disco every Christmas". Since then, the "Hits" have been a mandatory purchase every December.

Tropical Siesta begins in a rural landscape of Vietnam. Very quickly, painted images of students sleeping on their school benches appear. A text speaking of how the communist regime has placed agriculture at the center of its economy reads alongside the images. The script tells of how children have access to only one book History of the Kingdom of Tonkin (1650) by Alexandre de Rhodes, a French Jesuit missionary. In different scenes, children interpret the stories of the book to escape from reality. The landscape of Tropical Siesta recalls the dark period of Communism during which many people were deported or executed— a history that was not written, the amnesia of a people to which the innocence of children respond.

Rogério Duarte is one of the most important names in Tropicália, a Brazilian cultural movement of the 1960s. The plastic artist was one of the first to publicly denounce the tortures committed in the military regime. During the dictatorship, its political action and its cultural achievements mobilized many artists and inspired a whole generation.

Molise is one of the smallest Italian regions. People say that it doesn’t exist. In effect, it does exist in space, not in time. Not in 2023. An uncontaminated, rural land that has quietly hidden itself from the eye of the modern world’s storm.

The film is inspired by the costumes of folk art performers at Taiwan's ceremonial festivals. Adapted from the Southeast Asian folktale The Mousedeer Crosses River, it integrates similar folktale narratives from different countries to create animated puppet dancers.

Four trans women are brought into a hotel room on the same night. Each one of them is asked to lay on a bed in an empty room and reveal herself to a camera mounted on the ceiling. As the film progresses, they share with the camera their fantasies, hopes, questionings and experiences in the streets of São Paulo, where they work as prostitutes.

1990 Original Video.

This half-hour documentary was screened on Channel 4 in 1989. Charlie Gillett is in conversation with David Byrne and Susan Young. Gillett explores Byrne's interest in the music composed during Brazil's repressive political regime spanning the 1960's -1980’s, and Byrne's aim to introduce a wider audience to this music by compiling a series of albums featuring musicians from that era. Byrne asked Young to direct the animated film Beleza Tropical (Umbabarauma) to accompany the first of these albums. Young describes her approach to the making of the film and reflects upon this subtle and fascinating genre of music. The soundtrack features various artists from the album Beleza Tropical, Brazil Classics 1.

A maldição tropical is a short meditation on Portuguese-Brazilian icon Carmen Miranda, by way of the development of Rio de Janeiro.

A film about the first launch of the Soyuz launch vehicle from the Kourou cosmodrome (French Guiana). About the long-term joint work of Russian and European specialists who built a Russian launch complex in the impenetrable jungles of Guiana. For the first time since the Caribbean crisis, Russian missiles are based on the American continent. The Soyuz launches from the tropical cosmodrome in French Guiana are something new in the history of domestic and world cosmonautics. Will Russia be able to expand its presence in the global space market? And is it possible to do this today within the framework of one country and industry?