In this vivid pastiche of images, music and text, Santos addresses technology and image-making in the context of cultural formation. Writes Santos: "Technology is explored in terms of information speed — a feature that makes popular absorption and understanding all the harder. Metaphorically, this process is akin to obtaining information through the ultra-condensation of mere legends and subtitles. Though this may occur in developed countries, such a process displays and unleashes its greatest vigor in a culture such as Brazil's. I Cannot Go to Africa Because I Am on Duty indirectly touches upon values: instead of being concerned with the information-absorption process and with the likelihood of controlling the image-producing process, we are hellbent on running a race, whose sole goal is to employ the latest technological innovation in terms of image production."
Lucia (Natassja Kinski) is a volatile, exciteable young woman. She forms a romance with Carlo (Stefano Dionisi), who is somewhat callow and is very skittish.
On a West German Autobahn, Robert plummets from a bridge and is hospitalized. As he recovers, he flashes back to a Bulgarian holiday where he met Jutta and her uncle Lothar, who’d ordered a West German passport to smuggle her out of the DDR.
A police chief in the war-torn streets of Los Angeles discovers that an extraterrestrial creature is hunting down residents - and that he is the next target.
Vivian is a carefree, streetwise diamond in the rough when she meets sophisticated billionaire Edward in a chance encounter that turns into a week-long business arrangement.
In 1973 Vietnam, gas bombs are dropped on villages, killing men, women, and children. Two downed American pilots, accused of the bombings, are captured and tortured.
Joseph Mnwana arrives at Heathrow on a flight from Johannesburg and asks for political asylum. But what is he fleeing from? The authorities are suspicious, and Joseph has an uncertain future in store.
Andreas, who is ten, has been brought up by his grandmother. When she dies, he removes a putto from the crucifix placed upon her, puts it in his mouth and does not speak again.
Wounded Civil War soldier John Dunbar tries to commit suicide—and becomes a hero instead. As a reward, he's assigned to his dream post, a remote junction on the Western frontier, and soon makes unlikely friends with the local Sioux tribe.
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