General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

O Auto da Compadecida

O Auto da Compadecida is a 2000 Brazilian comedy-drama film directed by Guel Arraes, adapted from the 1955 stage play of the same name by Ariano Suassuna. It follows the schemes of two poor men in the backlands (sertão) of Paraíba, João Grilo and Chicó, and their trial before Jesus Christ and the Devil after João Grilo's death. The film was first produced as a four-chapter miniseries for TV Globo in January 1999 and then reedited for theatrical release, premiering on 15 September 2000 in 90 cinemas across Brazil.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	O Auto da Compadecida
Release	15 September 2000, Brazil, in 90 cinemas²
Director and screenwriters	Guel Arraes; screenplay by Arraes, Adriana Falcão, and João Falcão³
Source	1955 play Auto da Compadecida by Ariano Suassuna⁴
Box office	2,157,166 admissions, the most-seen Brazilian film of 2000, grossing over R$ 11 million⁴
Lead cast	Matheus Nachtergaele (João Grilo), Selton Mello (Chicó), Fernanda Montenegro (Nossa Senhora)³
Production	Globo Filmes; distributed by Sony Pictures (Columbia TriStar)³^•⁵
Runtime	Listed as 104 min by the Cinemateca Brasileira and 105 min by Globo Filmes; other databases give 1h35 and 1h44⁵^•³^•⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot and characters

The story is set in the village of Taperoá, in the sertão of Paraíba. João Grilo, a poor and quick-witted backlander, and Chicó, described as the most cowardly of men, survive by their wits, conning the inhabitants of the village. Their schemes include staging a screening of A Paixão de Cristo, working for the miserly baker Eurico and his unfaithful wife Dora, and arranging a lavish funeral for Dora's dog, which brings them into conflict with the Church. Chicó's love for Rosinha, daughter of Antonio Moraes, arouses the jealousy of Cabo Setenta, and the pair's plans around a clay pig filled with money are interrupted by the arrival of the cangaceiro (bandit) Severino and the death of João Grilo.³^•⁵

The dead characters meet at the Last Judgment, where they are tried in the Tribunal das Almas by a black Jesus Christ and by the Devil, and the fate of each is decided by the appearance of Nossa Senhora, the Compadecida, bringing a surprising ending, particularly for João Grilo.³

The cast pairs Matheus Nachtergaele as João Grilo and Selton Mello as Chicó, with Fernanda Montenegro as Nossa Senhora, Maurício Gonçalves as Jesus Cristo, Luís Melo as the Diabo, Marco Nanini as Cangaceiro Severino, Diogo Vilela as the Padeiro, Denise Fraga as Dora, Virgínia Cavendish as Rosinha, Rogério Cardoso as Padre João, Lima Duarte as the Bispo, Aramis Trindade as Cabo Setenta, Bruno Garcia as Vicentão, and Enrique Diaz as the Capanga.³

From stage to miniseries to film

The project began on television. Guel Arraes, a television director born in Recife, adapted Suassuna's play as a miniseries of four chapters, shot on 35 mm film stock with a single camera in the manner of cinema production, and broadcast by TV Globo in January 1999.¹ One film database dates the broadcast to January 1998.⁶ Because of the miniseries' success, Arraes and Globo Filmes prepared a cinema version. In a 2000 interview with Folha de S.Paulo, Arraes described persuading Globo to release it theatrically, saying the network had "without meaning to, produced a film"; the theatrical cut removed about an hour from the roughly two hours and forty minutes of the series, a decision he justified by the episodic structure of small adventures tied together by the two protagonists and the afterlife scenes.²

The film is considered the first feature made entirely by Globo Filmes, from conception through development.⁶ Scholars have noted the unusual production path: the work was shot with television capital and a television crew, and the miniseries was later reedited into the film, which has generated discussion about whether the work belongs to cinema or television.⁸

Sources of the screenplay

The adaptation goes beyond the 1955 play. The screenplay by Arraes, Adriana Falcão, and João Falcão incorporates material from other Suassuna works, O Santo e a Porca, Torturas de um Coração, and A Pena e a Lei, and draws on Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron and William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.⁹ According to an academic account, the adapters researched medieval and Renaissance stories that matched the northeastern setting, seeking above all the Decameron episodes dealing with the lust of priests, medieval farces, pre-Molière comedies, and plots from Suassuna's own plays, with the aim of adding storylines and characters without distorting the original text.¹⁰

Production

Filming took place on film stock in 1999, over 37 days, about nine days per chapter, in Cabaceiras in the sertão of Paraíba, a town near Taperoá, where the play's adventures are set, and at Estúdios Globo and the Cinédia studios in Rio de Janeiro.⁴^•¹¹^•⁶ For the Paraíba scenes, house facades were adapted, street lighting posts replaced, telephone cables hidden, and the local church painted.¹¹

Costume and characterization. Costume designer Cao Albuquerque mixed archaic and northeastern styles; all the characters' clothes were boiled in a cauldron, dyed, and sanded repeatedly to give a worn look.¹¹ Marco Nanini's cangaceiro characterization included a false glass eye, latex on the face, a wig, and a costume weighing up to eight kilograms. Matheus Nachtergaele used a yellowed, irregular dental prosthesis and darkened his skin to play João Grilo.¹¹ Chicó's tall tales were illustrated with animations.¹¹

Reception and awards

The film was a commercial success. It attracted 2,157,166 spectators, making it the most-seen Brazilian film in Brazil in 2000, and grossed more than R$ 11 million.⁴ At the Grande Prêmio Cinema Brasil in 2001 it won awards for Best Director (Guel Arraes), Best Actor (Matheus Nachtergaele), Best Screenplay (Arraes, Adriana Falcão, and João Falcão), and Best Release, and was nominated for Best Film.¹¹ The Cinemateca Brasileira filmography also records Best Film at the Mostra de Cinema de Tiradentes in 2000 and the popular-jury Best Film award at the Brazilian Film Festival in Miami in 2001.⁵ The miniseries had earlier received the Grande Prêmio da Crítica from the Associação Paulista dos Críticos de Arte (APCA) in 1999.¹¹

On the AdoroCinema aggregator, users rate the film 4.7 out of 5 from more than 5,600 ratings.⁶

Legacy

The film is regarded as one of the classics of Brazilian cinema, and the play itself is considered a landmark of Brazilian performing arts, situated within the Movimento Armorial, the artistic current Suassuna conceived to create erudite art from northeastern popular culture; the character João Grilo comes from popular tales of Brazil and Portugal and recurs in literatura de cordel.¹² The miniseries was sold to Portugal and reaired on TV Globo in film format in 2002.¹¹

A sequel, O Auto da Compadecida 2, directed by Guel Arraes, premiered in Brazilian cinemas on 25 December 2024, 25 years after the miniseries, with Selton Mello and Matheus Nachtergaele reprising their roles.⁴^•¹³ The original film remains available on streaming services such as Globoplay.⁶

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2000 to 2002 › Comedies of 2000

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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