Urbania

A blind old man and his driver spend a day and a night in Sao Paulo. After thirty years, the man has returned to the city where he lost his wife, his business and his sight. He wants to see the city one more time before he dies, through the eyes of his driver and passers-by.Just as in his previous short films, Frederico has found a very effective way to tell his story. Urbania is a sentimental journey, in which the old man’s memories are visualised through black & white archive footage from documentaries and fiction films. At the same time, the film bears witness as a documentary to the present state of the city and its inhabitants, to poverty and unemployment. The people the film-maker meets on his way talk about their lives: to the old man, but also to the camera that films them. For instance, there is a scene in which the old man is chatting to a passer-by, who gradually starts addressing the viewer while the old man and the driver walk off camera. The changing relationship between the man and his driver gradually forms part of the story: the man becomes more humane, the driver becomes more impatient and boring. The conflict between the present and the past gets a counterpart in the conflict between young and old.