Middle of the World (2003)—Brazil

            Which is more important, the journey or the destination? Romao is an illiterate and unemployed man with a wife and five kids, but he believes in destiny. "My true destiny is on the road," he tells anyone who would stop him from taking his family of seven on a six-month, two thousand mile bicycle journey across the heart of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro. There, he believes, he will find work so that he can feed his family. People think he's crazy, of course, including his family. They panhandle, do odd jobs, sing songs at restaurants, meet people both evil and good, and sleep in abandoned buildings and rusted out buses. But they love each other deeply and experience many life lessons, especially the adolescent Antonio who is turning into a young man. This film, "based upon a true story," won at least five festival awards, all of them deserved in my opinion. In Portuguese with English subtitles.