Rouge Brésil

 

Based on the novel with the same name by French writer Jean-Christophe Rufin, the movie Rouge Brésil tells the story of NIcolas Durand's, sieur de Villegaignon, expedition to Brazil around the year1550 and his struggle to create a colony, the so-called Antarctic France, in a Brazil conquered by the Portuguese. As background, the battles with Portugal, the history of the foundation of Rio de Janeiro and the inception of the Brazilian identity in the 1st century of colonization. The place chosen by Villegaignon for his quest in the tropics was a stretch of the coast initially ignored by the Portuguese: the, still, virgin and wild Guanabara bay. The attempted incursion by the French of this earthly Eden served as a kick-start for a bigger engagement of the Portuguese in the occupation of the lands they had discovered. As such, from a small wooden fortress built to combat invaders -and that had as command center an small island that until this day carries Villegaignon's name -, the city of Rio de Janeiro was born. Rouge Brésil conveys this story through the eyes of two kids, Just e Colombe, orphans taken in the expedition to be trained as interpreters in the relationship with the wild natives.