The Sandpit Generals

The film was inspired by a novel by Jorge Amado. It is set in Bahia, in Brazil. In the city there is a gang of homeless children. A boy called Pedro Bala leads them. They have nobody, and they live on the street. They keep themselves alive by stealing. No one is looking after them. Among themselves they have built an order of their own. Capoeira and Afro Brazilian belief are part of that order. A girl named Dora joins them. The group changes once she is there. The film shows the lives of these children without prettying them up. Violence is part of that life. The production could not be screened in Brazil for a period. In the Soviet Union it drew large audiences. Kent Lane and Tisha Sterling appear in the hundred and two minute film, an American production Hall Bartlett finished in 1972.