Midnight

After Terra Estrangeira (1995), Midnight marks another co-operative venture between Daniela Thomas and Walter Salles. A young man who refuses to spend the millennium in jail will have to kill his best friend to regain his freedom. A young woman who is suddely deserted by the man she loves wants to commit suicide. These two people find each other on the roof of a building that looks out over the Copacabana, the beach of Rio de Janeiro. Both refuse to give in to their present situation. On the last night of the millennium they will have to find a new life.Midnight uses the breathtaking beauty and terrible poverty of Rio as an apt set for a dynamic and romantic love story. At the same time, the film is about the growing gap between rich and poor, North and South. In Brazil, successive generations have become used to hearing at school that their country will be the country of the future. The arrival of the new millennium confronts them with this promised land, which in fact isn't one.The film has been made as part of '2000 vu par...', a series of films about the state of play on the eve of the new millennium, initiated by La Sept/ARTE. See also Don McKellar's Last Night, Hal Hartley's Book of Life, Tsai Ming-liang's The Hole, Albaladejo's The First Night of My Life and Abderrahmane Sissako's La vie sur terre.