Black Orpheus () is a 1959 film made in Brazil by French director
Marcel Camus. It is based on the play
Orfeu da Conceição by
Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the
Greek legend of
Orpheus and
Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of a
favela in
Rio de Janeiro during the
Carnaval. The film was an international co-production between
production companies in Brazil, France and Italy.
The film is particularly renowned for its soundtrack by two Brazilian composers:
Antônio Carlos Jobim, whose song "A felicidade" opens the film; and
Luiz Bonfá, whose "
Manhã de Carnaval" and "Samba of Orpheus" have become
bossa nova classics.
Black Orpheus won the
Palme d'Or at the
1959 Cannes Film Festival as well as the 1960
Academy Award for
Best Foreign Language Film and the 1960
Golden Globe Award for
Best Foreign Film (in those awards the film was credited as a French production; only in the 1961
BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film was Brazil credited together with France and Italy).
Large tracts of the film were shot in the
Morro da Babilônia, a favela in the
Leme neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro.,
The Guardian, January 14, 2006 In 1999, the film was remade as
Orfeu by
Carlos Diegues, this time with a soundtrack featuring Brazilian singer-songwriter
Caetano Veloso.
Plot
The movie opens with images of white
Greek...
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