Jacyra Sampaio

Meant principally for a sympathetic audience, whether Catholic or not, this routine story about a priest's receiving the call to the cloth may be a bit slow and theatrical for some viewers. Directed by Lima Barreto, the tale is told in a series of flashbacks as the priest remembers how he was transformed as a child into a person willing to give his life in service of the church and his God. Barreto also scripted the story, which in the end, may be too filled with religious platitudes and preachy overtones to effectively convey its message.

Jorge de Oliveira is an Afro-Brazilian poet who works in a publicity agency in São Paulo. Torn between his rich white lovers and his black family and friends, Jorge's situation serves as a springboard to a discussion about racial issues in Brazil.

Monarchists and Republicans confront themselves in Araruna, a small town in the interior of São Paulo, in 1886, two years before the promulgation of the Golden Law. Sinhá Moça's love story, daughter of Colonel Ferreira, Baron de Araruna, and a slave-boy, with the young Dr. Rodolfo, an active Republican abolitionist, faced with the difficulties of the campaign for the abolition of slaves. The two meet on the train, when Sinhá Moça, after completing her studies in the provincial capital, returns to Araruna. Like Rodolfo, she has abolitionist ideas and criticizes her father's attitudes, fighting for the defense of blacks. Sinhá Moça, together with Rodolfo and other abolitionists, invade the slave quarters at night and liberate the blacks, giving them to the abolitionist associations, which guide them towards freedom.

A Muralha is a Brazilian telenovela that first aired on TV Excelsior in 1968. It is based on a novel by Diná Silveira de Queirós.