Cine-Expo

Orfeu Negro by Marcel Camus, 1h45, VOSTF (restored version) from 1959

As part of the exhibitions it hosts, the Clement Foundation gives artists carte blanche to select a film to be screened outdoors in the gardens of the Habitation Clément.

Orfeu Negro: Against a background of the exalted and shimmering colors of Rio's carnival, Eurydice, a young provincial girl threatened with death by a stranger, finds refuge with Serafina, her cousin. She soon meets the dancer-guitarist Orpheus, one of the stars of the carnival, who, in daily life, is a tram driver. They fall passionately in love. In order not to arouse the jealousy of Mira, Orpheus's fiancée, Serafina lends her Carnival costume to her cousin, so that Eurydice will be able to accompany her beloved in his performance. But the next day, she is unmasked ...

A modern transposition of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into the carnival of Rio de Janeiro, this film received the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1960.