Macunaíma, the protagonist of the eponymous 1928 novel by Mário Andrade, is the anti-hero of the Amazon. He converses with animals and stars, and he is a consummate shape-shifter, at home as much in the big city as in the rain forest. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s 1969 film of the novel was the biggest hit of the Cinema Novo. Film and novel are prime examples of the “anthropofagismo”, the artistic cannibalism that is at the heart of new modernism declared by Osvaldo de Andrade (related to neither Andrades) in his manifesto in 1928.

Lecture in German language.