Rio, a Day in August

Filmmaker Maria Ramos returns to Rio de Janeiro, twenty years after she was there as a child. In the city, she takes the train from Campo Grande to Central do Brasil, the bustling central station of Rio de Janeiro. She meets a few regular passengers, who make this trip every day to work: a nurse, a mechanic of refrigerating systems, a cleaning woman and two boys who sell banana candies on the train. Through these protagonists, the film presents an image of life in this city, at a quiet tempo. It is just a day in August, but meanwhile substantial issues are addressed: the two lads talk nonchalantly about their absent fathers and how badly these men treat their mothers; the nurse attends a child delivery in a hospital; the cleaning woman calmly tells her employer how her husband died; and it turns out that the mechanic lives for his music. Rio, een dag in Augustus / Rio, A Day in August was made as part of a series of Travelogues, for which fifteen Dutch filmmakers, commissioned by the Humanistische Omroep and production company Pieter van Huystee Film and TV, set out with a modest crew and a small DV camera to film a rail journey. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)