# Cidade Baixa
**Cidade Baixa** (Lower City) is a 2005 Brazilian drama directed by Sérgio Machado, set in the port district of [Salvador, Bahia](https://www.edgepedia.org/salvador-bahia), and centered on a love triangle between two childhood friends who work a cargo boat and the stripper who comes between them.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) It was Machado's first fiction feature, screened in the Un Certain Regard (Cannes' secondary competition section) section at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Award of the Youth.[2](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50894.shtml)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / debut | Sérgio Machado, born in Salvador in 1968; his first fiction feature after the documentary *Onde a Terra Acaba* (2001)[3](https://leffest.com/en/films/cidade-baixa) |
| Cast | Alice Braga as Karinna, Lázaro Ramos as Deco, Wagner Moura as Naldinho[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) |
| Production | Brazil, 2005; screenplay by Machado and Karim Aïnouz; cinematography by Toca Seabra; music by Carlinhos Brown and Beto Villares; produced by VideoFilmes[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) • [4](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa) |
| Runtime | 100 minutes per the Cannes festival listing; other databases list 98 or 110 minutes[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) • [4](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa) |
| Cannes 2005 | Screened in Un Certain Regard; won the Award of the Youth, granted by the French Ministry of Youth[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) • [2](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50894.shtml) |
| Festival do Rio 2005 | Best film (official jury) and best actress for Alice Braga[5](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0810200519.htm) |
| Brazilian release | 4 November 2005[4](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Deco (Lázaro Ramos) and Naldinho ([Wagner Moura](https://www.edgepedia.org/wagner-moura)) have known each other since childhood and make a living from freight runs and small hustles aboard the Dany Boy, a steamboat they bought in partnership.[6](https://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-60650/) On one trip they give a ride to Karinna ([Alice Braga](https://www.edgepedia.org/alice-braga)), a stripper looking for work, and money, in Salvador during carnival.[6](https://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-60650/) After unloading at Cachoeira, the two men visit a cockfight where Naldinho bets his earnings, gets into a fight, and is knifed; Deco defends him, and the pair flee by boat to Salvador.[6](https://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-60650/)
In the city the trio settles into a ménage à trois, with Karinna working in a nightclub while both men fall in love with her.[6](https://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-60650/) • [7](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/dec/04/features.review4) The arrangement holds until jealousy and possessiveness take over, especially after Karinna becomes pregnant.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/dec/04/features.review4) The Guardian's Philip French described the result as "a violent, passionate, erotic film" that ends as abruptly as it begins.[7](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/dec/04/features.review4)
## Production and origins
**From period piece to present day.** Machado's first concept for the film was a period drama mixing the worlds of the writer [Jorge Amado](https://www.edgepedia.org/jorge-amado), the composer Dorival Caymmi, and the artist Carybé in 1950s Bahia. He developed the project with the screenwriter and director Karim Aïnouz, known for *Madame Satã*, until the documentarian Eduardo Coutinho told him to drop the period setting and tell a story of the Bahia he had lived himself.[8](https://veja.abril.com.br/coluna/em-cartaz/sergio-machado-relembra-laco-com-jorge-amado-em-documentario-padrinho/)
Machado said he wanted a love triangle different from the traditional model, without death and punishment, and that he wanted to understand lower-class twenty-year-olds in Brazil who had few prospects but managed to survive.[9](https://www.cineweb.com.br/Filmes/Ler/1587) The screenplay drew on field research in bars and strip clubs in Salvador; Machado said the script carried much of what he heard from the people of that nightlife.[9](https://www.cineweb.com.br/Filmes/Ler/1587) He also cited a Dostoevskian inspiration, pointing to *Notes from Underground*, and said that about 80 percent of the story takes place within the metropolitan perimeter of Salvador.[10](https://www.cinemaescrito.com/2005/10/entrevista-sergio-machado-lazaro-ramos-cidade-b/)
Before directing features, Machado had been assistant director to Walter Salles on *Central Station* (1998), *Midnight* (1998), and *Shredded April* (2001), and had debuted as a director with the documentary *Onde a Terra Acaba* in 2001.[3](https://leffest.com/en/films/cidade-baixa) The film was produced by VideoFilmes, Salles's Rio de Janeiro company.[1](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/) • [5](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0810200519.htm)
## Reception at Cannes and in Brazil
The film was shown to the Cannes public on 16 May 2005 in the Un Certain Regard sidebar and was applauded at the end of a full screening in the festival palace's second-largest theater; jury members including the section president [Alexander Payne](https://www.edgepedia.org/alexander-payne) attended, as did [Abbas Kiarostami](https://www.edgepedia.org/abbas-kiarostami).[11](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50806.shtml) On 20 May it received the Prêmio da Juventude, awarded by the French Ministry of Youth.[2](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50894.shtml)
At the Festival do Rio in October 2005, the official jury presided over by Marco Müller gave it best film and best actress for Alice Braga, niece of the actress [Sônia Braga](https://www.edgepedia.org/sonia-braga).[5](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0810200519.htm) Later honors included the Golden Colon for best film and a best new director award at the Huelva Latin American Film Festival, the Grand Prize at the Mons International Festival of Love Films, and at the 2007 Cinema Brazil Grand Prize the award for best actress for Braga among 15 nominations.[12](https://www.imdb.com/pt/title/tt0456899/awards/) Papo de Cinema records worldwide box office of US$228.6 thousand.[13](https://www.papodecinema.com.br/filmes/cidade-baixa/curiosidades)
## Critical response
Brazilian critics were divided on the script but broadly praised the acting. Rubens Ewald Filho, writing for UOL, called the story weak and predictable and gave it a low mark, while crediting the cast, and particularly the long stage and screen partnership between the two Bahian leads Wagner Moura and Lázaro Ramos, for making the film work.[14](https://cinema.uol.com.br/resenha/teste/2005/cidade-baixa.jhtm) Pablo Villaça of Cinema em Cena gave it 4 of 5 stars, finding the escalation of tension between the two men unconvincing but the climax and ending poetic and adult.[4](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa)
**The ending as a statement.** The psychoanalyst and essayist Maria Rita Kehl, writing in Folha de S.Paulo, read the film as an "epic of infamous lives": instead of the violent outcome expected of Brazilian films about the poor, it stakes everything on an ethic of friendship. In her reading, Karinna falls in love not with either man but with the bond between them, and the final scene suggests a fraternal pact sealed in blood; Deco and Naldinho do not kill each other because they choose not to.[15](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/mais/fs1311200504.htm) Machado later named her review the article he most liked about any of his films.[16](https://revistadecinema.com.br/2015/12/entrevista-sergio-machado/)
English-language reviews noted the film's comparison with [Alfonso Cuarón](https://www.edgepedia.org/alfonso-cuaron)'s *Y Tu Mamá También*, which shares the premise of two close men and one woman, but found *Cidade Baixa* grittier and more compact, and praised its attention to Salvador's poor districts, the "lower city" of the title.[17](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/lower-city-film-review-by-richard-mellor) The critic Carlos Alberto Mattos located the film's strength in a fusion of sexuality and violence, calling it one of the most sensual and one of the most violent Brazilian films of recent times.[18](https://criticos.com.br/?p=912)
## The city in the title
The title names a real district of Salvador, the low-lying port area below the elevated upper city, and the film treats it as a character that shapes its inhabitants.[4](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa) Kehl argued that the lower city, unlike the restored Pelourinho tourist quarter, still belonged to the poor and Black population that had always lived there, and that this preserved social fabric explains the film's less violent sociability even outside the law; the film closes with documentary-style street scenes in Salvador's narrow alleys, set to a lament sung by Carlinhos Brown.[15](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/mais/fs1311200504.htm)
## References
1. [Cidade Baixa (Lower City), Festival de Cannes film page](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/cidade-baixa/)
2. ["Cidade Baixa" é premiado em Cannes, Folha Online, 20 May 2005](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50894.shtml)
3. [Lower City, LEFFEST – Lisboa Film Festival page](https://leffest.com/en/films/cidade-baixa)
4. [Cidade Baixa, crítica por Pablo Villaça, Cinema em Cena](https://cinemaemcena.com.br/criticas/cidade-baixa)
5. [Rio premia "Cidade Baixa" e "Máquina", Folha de S.Paulo, 8 October 2005](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/ilustrad/fq0810200519.htm)
6. [Cidade Baixa, sinopse, AdoroCinema](https://www.adorocinema.com/filmes/filme-60650/)
7. [Lower City, review by Philip French, The Observer / The Guardian, 3 December 2005](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2005/dec/04/features.review4)
8. [Sérgio Machado relembra laço com Jorge Amado em documentário: 'Padrinho', VEJA](https://veja.abril.com.br/coluna/em-cartaz/sergio-machado-relembra-laco-com-jorge-amado-em-documentario-padrinho/)
9. [Cidade Baixa, Cineweb, 1 November 2005](https://www.cineweb.com.br/Filmes/Ler/1587)
10. [Entrevista: Sérgio Machado, Lázaro Ramos, Cinema Escrito, 29 October 2005](https://www.cinemaescrito.com/2005/10/entrevista-sergio-machado-lazaro-ramos-cidade-b/)
11. [Filme brasileiro "Cidade Baixa" é aplaudido em Cannes, Folha Online, 17 May 2005](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/ilustrada/ult90u50806.shtml)
12. [Cidade Baixa (2005), awards, IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/pt/title/tt0456899/awards/)
13. [Cidade Baixa, curiosidades, Papo de Cinema](https://www.papodecinema.com.br/filmes/cidade-baixa/curiosidades)
14. [Cidade Baixa (2005), resenha por Rubens Ewald Filho, UOL Cinema](https://cinema.uol.com.br/resenha/teste/2005/cidade-baixa.jhtm)
15. [Um épico de vidas infames, por Maria Rita Kehl, Folha de S.Paulo, 13 November 2005](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/mais/fs1311200504.htm)
16. [Entrevista: Sérgio Machado, Revista de Cinema, 2015](https://revistadecinema.com.br/2015/12/entrevista-sergio-machado/)
17. [Lower City, review by Richard Mellor, Eye for Film](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/lower-city-film-review-by-richard-mellor)
18. [Cidade Baixa, crítica por Carlos Alberto Mattos, Críticos.com.br](https://criticos.com.br/?p=912)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Erotic thrillers and dramas*
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