Rediscovered Orson Welles film comes to HMB Saturday

For many years, Orson Welles’s It’s All True, was one of Hollywood’s legendary lost films. The film was a documentary project Welles began shooting in Brazil in 1942 for the U.S. Government and RKO. It was intended as a tribute to the people of Latin America, a soft-sell propaganda film to promote hemispheric solidarity and counter the threat of fascism. But what Welles found and filmed in Brazil was not what his sponsors had in mind. He shot a radical film dealing sympathetically with the musical culture, the political aspirations, and the economic plight of poor Brazilians, many of whom were black and lived in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Under pressure from the Brazilian government and alarmed by the racial themes of the film, RKO terminated the production and fired Welles. Despite all of Welles’ efforts to finish the film back in Hollywood over a period of several years, it was taken away from him and partially destroyed.

After 309 cans of footage of It’s All True were discovered in the 1980s, Richard Wilson (Welles’s righthand man in Brazil), Myron Meisel, and Bill Krohn spent years constructing their magnificent documentary feature: It’s All True: Based On An Unfinished Film By Orson Welles. Experience the genius of Orson Welles through his work and through the eyes of the artists with whom he worked.
 
$6.00 donation
October 20, 2006 at 8:00 PM
Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary
777 Miramontes
(corner of Johnston)
Half Moon Bay
From Main Street in Half Moon Bay turn east on Miramontes to Johnston (just one block)