Tomatoes
Grown in Brazil
Eaten in Brazil
KEY FACTS
Type:
Short film (Portuguese with subtitles)
Duration:
13 minutes, 9 seconds
First shown:
15 June 1989
Director, Writer & Producer:
Jorge Furtado
Production company:
Casa de Cinema de Porto Allegre, Brazil
INGREDIENTS
INTENTIONS
Pop the bubble
Show capitalist evils
Teach economic geography
TACTICS
Make the familiar strange
Follow the thing
Join the dots
Lie to tell the truth
Embody exploitation
Make it incomplete
Make it funny
RESPONSES
Wow! WTF?
Capitalism is sh*t
They arenât experts!
I gotta do something
IMPACTS
Now weâre talking
Now I know!
Image credit
Fresh Tomatoes, Loose – Tomato isolated (https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/tomato-isolated_7481096.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=26&uuid=9e0c895b-6975-47d6-a7cc-9e1dc7cb06d1) by timolina (Freepik)
Ilha das Flores
IN BRIEF
Filmmaker Jorge Furtado follows a tomato from Mr Suzuki’s field to a garbage dump on the ‘Island of Flowers’ in Porto Allegre, Brazil. Here, a rotten one binned in Mrs Anete’s kitchen is fed to pigs. What’s left is then scavenged by local people. This eccentric 13 minute ‘masterpiece’ was made for Martians visiting Planet Earth. It explains what a human being is, what the function of money in capitalism is, why pigs are valued more than some people. It’s a parable of poverty.
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Original
Description
This is not a fictional filmâ. âThere is a place called the Island of Flowersâ. âThere is no Godâ. Mr. Suzuki is Japanese. He grows tomatoes to sell for money. Mrs Anete sells perfume and uses her wages to buy things. Like tomatoes to make a sauce for her familyâs pork dinner. One tomato is rotten. Diseased. She throws it in the trash. It ends up on the Ilha das Flores (the Island of Flowers) being fed – with othersâ discarded veg – to pigs. What they wonât eat, poor and hungry locals queue to scavenge. The narrator explains that that the âorganismsâ on this planet with âhighly developed brainsâ and âopposable thumbs are called humans. He explains the economic system they have created with the help of this tomato. Despite their intelligence and admirable ideals, that system is terrible. âFreedomâ, he quotes Cecilia Meirelles, âis a word the human dream feeds on, that no one can explain or fail to understandâ.
Inspiration / process / methodology
Jorge Furtado described his film as a âletter to a Martian who knows nothing of the earth and its social systemsâ. Itâs a collage of juxtaposed elements. Monty Python-style animation. Hitchhikerâs Guide narration. Archive and stock footage. Religious and historical iconography. Advertising cliches. Parodied quiz show and educational film formats. Original film footage. And precise, repeated definitions of concepts like âHumanâ, âTomatoâ, âPigâ, âMoney,â âFreedom.â Human and nonhuman are equally interesting. Humansâ highly developed brains have allowed them to improve their planet (cut to a nuclear mushroom cloud). âMoney was created in the seventh-century before Christ, Christ was a Jew, and Jews are human beingsâ (cut to World War Two images of Jewish people as Nazi death camp trash). Humour is a trap. The tomatoâs on a quest. Disparate dots are connected. Cognitive estrangement can dismantle neoliberal disourse, and bring social and environmental injustices into view. This film was cheap to make. It showed at festivals. Teachers brought VHS copies to class. Itâs online now. Freely available.
Discussions / responses
Itâs beautifully disheartening. Painfully hilarious. Head-battering. Stomach-punching. Entertaining and humorous. A brilliant depiction of capitalism, poverty, the human condition and consumptionâs toxic connections. Marx could have written it. I stopped watching after âThere is no Godâ. God exists. Amen! Why attack peopleâs faith? Seriously?!? Is your brain highly developed? Have you heard of satire? If God exists, he forgot about the people on Ilha das Flores. Brazilian bishops gave the film an award! âGod is deadâ is a quote from Nietzscheâs âThus spoke Zarathustraâ. It means itâs up to us to change the situation. The pig scene was staged. But this isnât a documentary. You can stage things that are true. I saw it in school when I was 9. Our geography teacher rolled out the TV, turned down the lights, and didnât say a word. Our conservative teacher wouldnât show it. My mind exploded. For my generation, this was a collective trauma. A landmark in Brazilian cinema. How can a 1989 film say so much about societyâs ignorance and lack of compassion today? I saw it in 2024 in my admin class. In psychology. Portuguese. Philosophy. Sociology. Nutrition in public health. Human beings are still free to go hungry. I still talk about humansâ opposable thumbs. Imagine a feature length version. Unbearable
Impacts / outcomes
Itâs one of the most influential short films ever. IMDBâs best Brazilian short and documentary film ever. The Gramado Film Festival audience gave it an hysterical standing ovation. Documentary film would never be the same again. It still gets students talking.
FOLLOWTHETHINGS.COM PAGE
Pavalow, M. (2025) followthethings.com/ilha-das-flores
DEPARTMENT: Grocery
by Lucian Harford (June 2025)
