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Rio Zone Norte was one of Brazil's contributions to the 1958 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Grande Otelo heads the cast as a self-trained composer of samba music. Unwise in the ways of the world, Otelo permits himself to be exploited by a charlatan who passes off the composer's music as his own. Things don't end so well for the protagonist, but he remains loyal to his Art to the very end. American critics in 1958 felt obliged to note that, despite the fact that the film's hero was black, the race issue was never mentioned in Rio Zone Norte; at the time, of course, race relations were far more relaxed in Brazil than the U.S.