Cidade dos Homens (2002)

In this original variation on the Latin American telenovela (slow, emotional soap), life in Rio de Janeiro, the Brazilian big city jungle, is told in short, fast alternating scenes from the viewpoints of two sets of characters, all youngsters, but from both sides of unequal life: generally dark-skinned street-kids, which rarely come to anything better then begging and street crime, and generally white boys from the middle and upper classes, like João Victor, who have a shot at a better future thanks to an actual education. Yet each group simultaneously hates, fears and envies the other at some level when their worlds physically touch but socially remain unbridgeable...