Tito and the Birds

Gabriel Bitar · André Catoto · Gustavo Steinberg
Brazil · 2018 · 73 min
In Portuguese with English subtitles · Recommended for ages 7 and up

This gorgeous film from Brazil uses a mix of oil painting, line drawing, and computer animation to tell an imaginative children’s tale with potent political undertones. Tito loves helping his father with his inventions. But Tito’s mom, always a skeptic, worries that something will go terribly wrong. Their latest experiment is a machine that can understand birds – but when the contraption starts smoking and sparking, Tito is injured, and his mom decides that for Tito’s safety, his father must leave. Years later, people start falling ill and an epidemic begins to spread: the cause, Tito determines, is fear. Recalling his father’s research, Tito suspects that the cure must lie in understanding birdsong, and along with his friends Sarah and Buiú – and some help from the city’s pigeon population – he sets out to find his father and complete the research before it’s too late.

A Shout! Studios release