Heco Produções manages and distributes a collection of 64 films created by directors such as Carlos Hugo Christensen, Carlos Reichenbach, Rogério Sganzerla, José Mojica Marins, Jean Garret, and Ody Fraga, among others.
This collection includes the Ozualdo R. Candeias Archive, which encompasses a major portion of the director’s filmography along with his collection of 16,450 photographs.
We may not yet fully appreciate the richness and diversity of the cinema produced in Boca do Lixo—a São Paulo filmmaking hub responsible for over 1,000 feature films between 1957 and 1992. Centered on Rua do Triunfo in the Luz neighborhood, this area—while having secured its place in Brazilian film history thanks to its vast output of commercial and erotic movies—remains far removed from the canon, and most of the professionals involved have fallen into obscurity.
While this neglect impoverishes our understanding of Brazilian cinema, it also allows new generations to discover remarkable works and creators.
Ozualdo Candeias
Ozualdo R. Candeias (1922–2007) was one of the pioneers of auteur cinema in Brazil and of the movement known as Cinema Marginal. One of the most creative filmmakers the country has ever produced, he made his feature debut with The Margin (1967), which is still regarded as a landmark of Brazilian cinema. A director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor, he also documented daily life in the Boca do Lixo, the vibrant film production hub in São Paulo that reached its peak between the late 1960s and the early 1980s.
POÇOS DE CALDAS
1956, documentary, 35mm, B&W
Institutional documentary about the tourist attractions of the town of Poços de Caldas.
INTERLÂNDIA (1960s)
documentary, 7 minutes, 35mm, B&W
Institutional documentary presenting the economic, religious, and social activities of the town of Espírito Santo do Pinhal.
Northeastern Games (1960s)
documentary, 10 minutes, 35mm, B&W
Documentary about the 6th Jogos Noroestinos (Northeastern Games), held in Campo Grande.
MARCH TO THE WEST NUMBER 3 (1960s)
documentary, 9 minutes, 35mm, B&W
Institutional documentary about the progress of the city of Campo Grande.
MARCH TO THE WEST NUMBER 3 5 (1960s)
documentary, 9 minutes, 35mm, B&W
Institutional documentary about the economic development of the city of Corumbá.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF A PORN FILM (1990s)
documentary, 13 minutes, COLOR
Documentary that uses photographs by Ozualdo R. Candeias to ironically record the making of a pornographic film.
Ozualdo R. Candeias’s work as a photographer was carried out alongside his filmmaking career, capturing the people and customs of the city of São Paulo between the 1960s and 1990s. The archive comprises an extensive photographic record of 16,450 images covering architecture, Rua do Triunfo and its surroundings, graffiti, portraits of Brazilian cinema figures, and behind-the-scenes shots from various films produced in the Boca do Lixo district. There are also numerous records of trips to Bolivia and Peru, as well as to the Brazilian regions of Mato Grosso, Paraná, and Brasília.
Carlos Hugo Christensen
Carlos Hugo Christensen (1914–1999) was an Argentine filmmaker who settled in Brazil in the 1950s. With an extensive filmography of more than 50 films, he moved masterfully across different countries and film genres, leaving an auteurist mark grounded in aesthetic refinement and technical mastery. A director, screenwriter, and producer, he made genre films, including horror, comedy, melodrama, and noir, forging a singular path in the history of Brazilian cinema.
Ody Fraga
Ody Fraga (1927–1987) was a Brazilian screenwriter and film director who rose to prominence in the Boca do Lixo production scene in São Paulo. A keen intellectual, he began his career writing teleplays for live television drama and moved into cinema with auteurist works that often explored female agency and human sexuality. Within this universe, his filmography includes both pornochanchadas and hardcore films.
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Carlos Reichenbach
Carlos Oscar Reichenbach Filho (1945–2012) was one of the leading figures of Brazil’s auteur cinema. A director, screenwriter, cinematographer, actor, musician, and film critic, “Carlão,” as he was affectionately known, began his career in the Boca do Lixo film district, working across various roles and becoming a staple of São Paulo’s film circles. His body of work, comprising short and feature films, is marked by its inventiveness and the seamless blend of high and popular culture.
José Mojica Marins
José Mojica Marins (1936–2020), best known for his character Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), was an icon of Brazilian cinema whose influence transcended his own films and became part of the country's cultural imagination.
A director, screenwriter, actor, and television host, he was a pioneer of horror cinema in Brazil, but also made westerns, adventure films, dramas, comedies, and erotic films. He remains one of the country's most influential filmmakers, having made more than 30 films and inspired an entire generation of filmmakers, especially those associated with Cinema Marginal and the Boca do Lixo.
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Jean Garrett
Jean Garrett (1946–1996) was a Portuguese filmmaker who built his film career in Brazil. A director, producer, and actor, he was instrumental in the development of the Boca do Lixo production scene and forged a style of his own, marked by aesthetic refinement, a blend of highbrow and popular idioms, and the use of artifice and eroticism as staging devices. He is often described as a "craftsman" of the pornochanchada. Although his films found popular success, he always preserved the auteurist character of his work.
John Doo
John Doo (1942–2012), the stage name of Chien Lien Tu, was a Chinese-born director, producer, screenwriter, and actor who became a naturalized Brazilian citizen. Active in the Boca do Lixo cultural scene, he directed projects that blended paranormal elements with eroticism and acted in films by fellow directors such as Ody Fraga, Jean Garrett, and Carlos Reichenbach.
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Antonio Meliande
Antonio Meliande (1945–2017) was born in Italy but built his career as a director and cinematographer in Brazilian cinema. One of the most celebrated cinematographers in the country's history, he worked on more than 100 films, collaborating with filmmakers such as Walter Hugo Khouri, João Batista de Andrade, and Jean Garrett, and directed several Boca do Lixo productions in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Alfredo Sternheim
Alfredo Sternheim (1942–2018) was a Brazilian director, screenwriter, critic, journalist, and writer. Active in the film society movement, he documented São Paulo's film production of the 1970s and 1980s through his films, articles, and books, a craft to which he devoted himself prolifically throughout his career.
Jairo Ferreira
Jairo Ferreira (1945-2003) was a Brazilian film director and critic. In a book of the same name, he coined the term “cinema de invenção” (invention cinema) to refer to independent, experimental and marginal cinema of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. A defender and frequent visitor to Boca do Lixo, he always supported the reinvention of Brazilian cinema through his texts and films, and collaborated with several filmmakers who worked in this scene.
Rogério Sganzerla
Rogério Sganzerla (1946–2004) was a Brazilian filmmaker and film critic often associated with the Cinema Marginal movement. The subversion of film language and the inventive use of collage and montage in his work became hallmarks of an auteurist style that proposed a cinema free from the constraints of aesthetic and narrative conventions.
Zendt Catalogue
