Jornal da Mostra
Nº 311 > 28ª Mostra > 25/10/2004
Subscribe here the 'Jornal da Mostra'
The meeting point of the Festival discusses the diversity of cinema
The Canadian Guy Maddin, who has a complete retrospective of his work in this edition of the Festival, along the producer Jody Shapiro, discussed about the optimism related to less conventional productions in the gathering point of this years Festival, on Sunday night. “The film distribution in Canada is very difficult due to Canadas small population and great American film influence. But the acceptance of my latest film, “The Saddest Music in the World”, quite surprised us because it showed during several weeks”, observed the director. “The initial intention was to make a commercial film but with Guy’s particular style”, added Shapiro, who also photographs and even takes the camera off the directors hands to shoot some scenes by himself.Visiting South America for the first time, the director Benno Schoberth and the producer and editor Lynn Cassaniti from the film “Shelter” (USA) are quite optimistic about the future of independent films. Schoberth, who debuts as a director and scriptwriter argued that “even the great studios have developed their lines to produced differentiated films, which proved that there is public for different genres, that don’t necessarily have explosions and car crashes”. For those reasons, the filmmaker is optimistic about the future of the cinema.
More than optimistic, Schoberth had to be persuasive. After all, he started to produce his film, about three young kids united in an alternative family, right before the September 11th attacks against the Twin Towers, in 2001. “Even though we were shooting in Long Island, it was still difficult to proceed under those circumstances” admitted Schoberth.
The producer and editor Lynn Cassaniti, who used to be a former painter, also believes that the future of the cinema will be based on the diversity of stories, like those of her preference, the smaller and more intimate ones. Lynn is a special admirer of the 40’s Italian cinema. For her, the great challenge is not in producing such films, but bringing them to the public. “The great difficulty is to release such films, not in filming them”. For this reason, Cassaniti and Schoberth consider their presence in the 28th São Paulo International Film Festival fundamental.
José Ramón Novoa, an experienced producer and director from Venezuela, has been working with Elia Schneider for several years now. Both made the film “Punto y Raya”, a dramatic comedy that shows the special relationship between a Venezuelan recruit and a Colombian country boy. Shot in the borders of both countries, the film illustrates the difficult relation between countries, the violence and damages made by the traffic of drugs. Today, Venezuela produces six to seven feature-films per year, but the producer thinks that if an incentive law would be implemented, the amount of films would double. Novoa compared the cinematographic experience to “an airport where directors and producers wait to see which next project is going to take off, without people even knowing why”.
The first debate in the meeting point of the Festival, about “the Diversity and the Limits of Documentaries”, on Sunday (24th), was an opportunity to unite Latin American filmmakers. In the debate were two Brazilians, Marta Nehring (“Neighbours”) and Pedro Cezar (“Fábio Fabuloso”); two Argentineans, Daniel Rosenfeld (“Aborigine Rugby Club”) and the scriptwriter Daniel Botti (“Nazi Gold in Argentina”); and also the Mexican director Jesse Acevedo, who directed “Everything Blue”, shot in Brazil with the narration of Caetano Veloso and Fernanda Montenegro.
The Argentinean Rosenfeld, from “Aborigine Rugby Club”, said that his film is in fact a blend of genres, mixing real characters with fiction. The protagonist is a rugby player that has racial tendencies and ends up developing a utopia of becoming a messiah to the aboriginal population. The filmmaker said that his film was made two years ago, when his country was going through a leadership crisis. “In a week, we had about five presidents”, said Rosenfeld about that period in Argentina.
Racism is one of the themes of “Everything Blue”, a trip made to Brazil by the Mexican director Jesse Acevedo. He became friends with the singer Virgínia Rodrigues. One night both where in a restaurant and Jesse observed that they were the only two black people in this particular place in Salvador. This came to his attention due the fact that most people in Salvador are black. Jesse believes that “there is still a hypocritical view on racism here. There is a certain satanization of certain Afro rituals, like Candomblé, which is believed to be witchcraft by some people”.
“Neighbours”, by Marta Nehring, who lives in São Paulo, shows the social and urban contrasts of the Vila Madalena neighborhood, where people who live in skyscrapers and favelas have to inhabit next to each other. The director brings out that the film should inspire the people who live in São Paulo to have a new look towards the city. According to Marta, “São Paulo is a city that seems very impersonal. I’d like my film to create a sense of belonging”.
Pedro Cezar, one of the three directors of “Fábio Fabuloso”, believes that even though mixed material was used to make his film – domestic VHS, Kodachrome photos, footage shot in 1984 and 1986, etc. – the edition and manipulation of the material, with the addition of the soundtrack, made the documentary very faithful to the character of the surfer Fábio Gouveia.
One of the producers of the film “Nazi Gold in Argentina”, Daniel Botti, said that he had difficulties to access files in his country that had crucial information regarding his film – the illegal traffic of nazi fugitives and lots of Hitler Era German money. According to Botti, “there wasn’t an open prohibition or anything, but we had to go through many obstacles. In some archives, we only had access to 10% of the material. In other cases, they would only allow us to see the information in 2006”. Shot in a year and a half, the documentary shows a thorough investigation in the illegal relations between Argentina and Germany from the moment Juan Domingo Perón came to the Argentinean government, first as a minister, then as president. The so called “nazi gold” enriched several companies that changed their names and then were transferred to the heirs of the founders. Some of them still exist to this day in Argentina – as is related in the documentary, based on the book “Odessa ao Sur” by Jorge Camarasa (also the co-writer of the film).
