Acting
Oct 17, 1915
Ubêrlandia, MInas Gerais, Brazil
Grande Otelo
Acting
Biography
Grande Otelo, pseudonym of Sebastião Bernardes de Souza Prata OMC (Uberlândia, October 18, 1915 – Roissy-en-France, November 26, 1993), was a Brazilian actor, comedian, singer, producer and composer. He was an artist in Rio's casinos and in the so-called revue theater, he participated in several successful Brazilian films, including the famous chanchadas in the 1940s and 1950s, which he starred in in partnership with the comic Oscarito, and the film version of Macunaíma, made in 1969. He is often cited as one of the most important actors in Brazilian history.
Feature Films (136)
Searching for Makunaima is a cultural and historical account of the most Brazilian character there is in fiction. The film begins with Makunaima, one of the founding myths of the native people from the border between Brazil-Venezuela-Guiana, first captured in the writings of the German ethnographer Koch-Grünberg at the beginning of the 1910s. With interviews in Portuguese, German, Spanish, and in the indigenous languages Macuxi and Taurepang, Searching for Macunaima reclaims this amazing character who represents Brazil in many ways (from literature to cinema to theatre) and remains relevant to date.
Searching for Makunaima
"Portraits and excerpts from Brazilian films from all times. Actors, directors and images that affirm cinema."
Celebração - 100 Anos do Cinema Nacional
Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.
Fitzcarraldo
Three friends meeting after the absence of one of them for 15 years out of the country. This sudden gathering give them the opportunity to examine their life, to criticize one another on their achievements.
Alibi
Cropped hair, a rosemary branch behind the ear, yellow shirt of shiny satin, he's behind the wheel of his car when passing by a woman who walks by the roadside. Strongly painted lips, printed dress with round skirt and red shoes matching the color of the lipstick, she catches his attention. He gives her a ride, the two of them stare in silence for a few moments. They introduce themselves to one another and between the two establishes an absurd dialogue and full of metaphors. And they are driving around in corners of Rio de Janeiro, to the sound of Noel Rosa and Lamartine Babo. Eva and Antena, she a seer, he, an assassin on the run, initiate an unusual case of love, a marginal love, where boredom often gives way to tragedy, creating the agony of a holiday spent in an abyss.
The Agony
Born a fully grown black man in a village in the Brazilian jungle, Macunaíma later magically transforms into a white man before making an adventure-filled trip to the city of São Paulo. Once there, he becomes something of a dandy, falling in love with Ci, a revolutionary who dies in an accidental bombing. After robbing a ruthless industrialist, Macunaima returns to his village where he finds his newly acquired knowledge and possessions of little use.
Macunaima
Intent on offering his fiancée a better life, countryman heads for Rio de Janeiro in search of a place in the sun...
I Loved a Bookie
In a movie studio, the actors are getting made up and the crew is waiting to begin shooting the film. Grande Otelo, the bungling "king of the deck", and Marta Anderson, the blond and provocative star of the show, recite in the historical scenario of the chanchadas, the abandoned studios of Cinédia. "The photography is splendid, it is a sort of parallel song, of critique, of parody, of understanding of a certain light typical of Brazilian cinema of the times, already re-created, already stylized. And with the older actors, Otelo, Lewgoy and the others, something very important happened in the artistic perception, seeing again, doing again, it was already a concrete metalanguage" (J. Bressane).
King of the Cards
Television & Series (27)
Nelson, a fishing champion, and his brother Miguel, a renowned plastic surgeon, compete for the love of Lígia, an ambitious woman who seeks to climb the social ladder by any means necessary.
Água Viva
Jose Inocencio had innocence only as part of his name, but only those who new him well could notice this. But nobody knew him. He was a storyteller, and he was always the main character in the stories he told. He managed not only to create stories about himself, he managed to create a legend. The story of this powerful cacao farmer; Maria Santa, the beloved wife who died; and their four children is the main theme of 'Renascer'.
Jequitibá
After getting lost on a sea excursion, Jô Penteado and Fábio Coutinho develop mutual feelings during the two months they spend stranded on a deserted island.
A Gata Comeu
In 1886, in the small town of Araruna, Little Missy rejects the actions of her father—the slave-owning Colonel Ferreira—alongside Rodolfo, an active abolitionist republican with whom she falls in love.
