York University's Portuguese and Luso-Brazilian Studies program has announced a partnership with the Toronto Black Film Festival to present the Brazilian documentary BOY 23: The forgotten Boys of Brazil (Menino 23: Infâncias perdidas no Brasil) on Feb. 18.
The film by Belisario Franca will screen as an Ontario premiere at 7pm at the Carlton Cinema (20 Carlton Street, Toronto), and takes place during Black History Month.
The film follows the research of historian Sidney Aguilar, beginning with the discovery of bricks marked with Nazi swastikas on a farm in the countryside of São Paulo. It reveals that during the 1930s, 50 black boys were taken from an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro and led to the farm where the bricks were found. There, the boys were identified by numbers and subjected to slave labor by a family that was part of the political, military and economic elite of the country. This family did not hide their affinity for the Nazi ideology.
Two survivors from this Brazilian tragedy, Aloísio Silva (the "boy 23") and Argemiro Santos, as well as the family of José Alves de Almeida (known as Two), reveal their stories for the first time in this film.
Information on the film, including a trailer and how to reserve tickets, can be found online.