In the 16th Century, in Brazil, the founder of Pindorama realizes that nobody works in the anarchic village. When the king arrives in town, there is a fight for power among the governor and politicians while the alienated people composed of Caucasians, Blacks, and Indians follow their leaders without any political awareness. This Brazilian film is set during the period of its initial colonial discovery and settlement. The title refers to a word the native peoples used for the coastal lands: "pindorama," or "place of the small trees." A ponderous and grandiose film, it was roundly booed when it was aired at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
        In 1970, the Brazilian society lived in a dictatorship and the Brazilian cinema was under the movement called "Cinema Novo" ("New Cinema"), influenced by the Italian Neo-Realism and the French "Nouvelle Vague". This cinema style opposed to the traditional clichés of the industry and had the concern to show a realistic Brazil, with slums, misery, drought, hunger, instead of the fairytale stories adopted by Hollywood. The great filmmaker Arnaldo Jabor in the beginning of career made his first feature visibly influenced by Glauber Rocha, considered by many as the best Brazilian director ever, and certainly trying to lure the censorship. The intention is to describe the origins of the Brazilian contemporary problems in a fictional tale in the Sixteenth Century.