Nilson Matta - Nilson Matta's Black Orpheus (2013)

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice has been told and retold in various mediums and manners throughout the ages. Claudio Monteverdi used opera as his means of transmitting the tale, alt-rocker Nick Cave tackled it head-on in song and author Neil Gaiman revisited the story in comic book format, but the list doesn't stop there; any decent rundown of Orpheus remakes has to include Brazil's two most famous contributions: the play Orfeu da Conceição and its subsequent film offspring, Black Orpheus (Dispat Films, 1959). These works set the story during the time of Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro and feature some of the finest Brazilian compositions to come out of the mid-twentieth century.