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‘Kites’ Review: Set in the Streets of Rio de Janeiro, Tribeca Discovery Offers a Sweet Leap Into Fantasy

Writer-director Walter Thompson-Hernandez counterbalances violence with magic realism in his outside-the-box first feature, 'Kites.'

Recipient of a special jury mention in the Tribeca Festival ’s tricky-to-define Viewpoints category, Walter Thompson-Hernandez’s debut “ Kites ” gently asks the audience to meet the project on its own terms. Ostensibly a story about strife in the gritty Rio de Janeiro favelas, the film becomes a sweet and earnest parable about one man trying against all odds to offer his community some respite from the injustice that engulfs it. In the first leap of faith “Kites” asks of its audience, Phil (Phillipe Augusto da Silva Souza), a comrade of Duvo’s who has been murdered by the police, appears to him as an angel, with big white wings sprouting from his back.

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