The Red Light Bandit

The centerpiece of the radical underground Cinema Marginal movement, this “electric, legendary movie” (Slant Magazine) written and directed by 21-year-old Rogério Sganzerla defiantly attacked Brazil’s sociopolitical morals, gleefully subverted the rules of narrative cinema and has lost none of its power to shock, disturb and delight: Based on police reports of the real-life bandit who terrorized ‘60s São Paulo, a charismatic crook (Paulo Villaça) robs the rich, taunts law enforcement and becomes a public hero in an anarchic odyssey that’s equal parts crime thriller, urban western, grindhouse roughie, twisted comedy, cultural grenade and still unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Helena Ignez (José Mojica Marins’ EMBODIMENT OF EVIL) co-stars in this “hallucinatory and amazing manifesto” (Next Projection) now scanned in 2K from the original camera negative.