Ângela Patrícia Reiniger, Cao Hamburger and Karim Aïnouz
BRAZILIAN DIRECTORS CONCLUDE PERSONAL WORKS
Because of the power present in his first feature film, it is inevitable to make comparisons. Karim Aïnouz, born in the state of Ceará, is the first one to point out the differences between Madame Satã and his most recent film Suely in the Sky. The first one had a suffocating, urgent camera, and the photography showed the dripping sweat in the humid Rio de Janeiro heat. His second feature is quieter, contemplative and dry. Hermila, the leading character, gets lost in the vast sceneries of Ceará state, while Madame Satã dominated and took over the stage and the flophouse where he was. Aïnouz confesses the character should just be called Suely, but when he casted Hermila Guedes, he realised a change of name was in order for this character, born in his imagination after reading an article about a woman who raffled off a night of sex.
This feature film is a return home to the state where he was born, dominated by women and the absence of a father figure. He says here the body is more important than the plot, since the “film is unplotted”. It’s more of a physical than a dramatic action; there is a close-up of the actor’s body, even if he is an ant in the vast wilderness. Space becomes the body’s biggest antagonist. And as a reflection of the family and emotional memory, all women in the plot are strong, never bitter in their abandonment. They live in a scenery that escapes from the white flat light of the place – thanks to great photography done by Walter Carvalho and his son Lula. Aïnouz got his inspiration to find the right registry for his film in the photographs of American photographer William Eggleston. Because of his tight budget, Aïnouz compliments cinema numerous times during the film, as in the final sequence, with the presence of the atavistic character played by João Miguel (Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures), the only man to appear repeatedly in the story. After Suely in the Sky, the director confesses his wish to make a happy and euphoric film, kind of like Saturday Night Fever, but also a film that discusses the social differences through the view of a private security guard. But since he always lives the moment, Karim is still enjoying his latest production after the warm Latin response he got at the Venice Film Festival, the more intellectual Anglo-Saxon response he got at the Toronto Film Festival and the screenings at the Mostra before its commercial premiere, on November 17. Then, Hermila who turns into Suely will be of public domain.
Ângela Patrícia Reiniger: Three Brazilians
Three brothers, three lives, three stories of political and cultural importance to the country: Henfil (Henrique), Betinho (Herbert) and Chico Mário (Francisco Mário), the Souza brothers, are the subjects of the documentary Three Blood Brothers, directed and co-written by Ângela Patrícia Reiniger. She says the biggest difficulty she had was to select the final material after 100 hours of shooting.
The documentary is 104 minutes long, but it manages to show the whole lives of the brothers, from childhood until death. They all had hemophilia and had been infected with Aids from blood transfusions. Hemophilia requires constant blood transfusions, and the three brothers were victims of the blood banks’ lack of monitoring. Ângela finds it important to denounce this fact, as recently there has been another case of contamination in Rio de Janeiro. People must be careful.Henfil, cartoonist, Betinho, sociologist, and Chico Mário, musician, all three had an intense socio-political participation in their community, far beyond their professional careers. To recover such participation, Ângela went to the archives of TV broadcasting stations like Rede Globo, TVE of Rio de Janeiro and TV Cultura of São Paulo. Betinho, who was exiled and became famous through the lyrics of the song O Bêbado e a Equilibrista, by João Bosco e Aldir Blanc (literally, “Brazil, that dreams with the return of Henfil’s brother”), can be seen when returning from exile in a scene of Globo’s news that Ângela had to have restored to be included in the documentary. She also had restored an audio of Betinho, sent from the exile to his mother, Maria, in which he says how much he misses his son, talks about his new marriage and his daily routine.
Ângela explains that she met Marcos de Souza, the son of Chico Mário, when she went to interview him for the TV show Mãe & Cia, on GNT (a cable TV channel). He wanted to make the film and took the project to Ângela who loved the idea. It took fours years to make, from the time of raising funds to finalizing it. During these years Ângela did extensive research. Some shootings were made in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Minas Gerais state, among other places the brothers have passed through. They collected rich material. The images are punctuated by Chico Mário’s music, picked by Ângela and Marcos de Souza, who was responsible for the musical direction of the documentary. But the director outlines that the final selection was made based on the emotion of the scenes, that’s why they are so meaningful. Angela still points out that the role of the filmmaker is also that of rescuing historical celebrities like the three Souza brothers. She confesses that she thought the younger audience would not be interested in it, for not having lived through the period, but she’s had excellent acceptance from them.
The film’s distribution is not yet settled, but Ângela says she will donate five thousand copies of a 60-minute-version of the film to schools and institutions. Also, after the film’s distribution, the profits will be donated to ABIA (literally, Interdisciplinary Brazilian Association of Aids). During her presence at the 30th Mostra, Ângela said that the ONG Pela Vida (literally, NGO For Life), that takes care of Aids victims, looked her up to have her film screened at the opening of a thematic festival the association will promote in 2007.
Cao Hamburger: A Finely-Tuned Team
Responsible for the creation of the TV show and feature film Castelo Rá-Tim-Bum, Cao Hamburger welcomed the Jornal da Mostra on Wednesday, the 25th, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in São Paulo for a chat about The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, his second full-length film. Set in 1970, it portrays the generation whose childhood was marked by military dictatorship. The main character, Mauro, is a 12-year old boy from Minas Gerais state who is left at his grandfather’s house in Bom Retiro, a neighborhood in São Paulo, while his parents, left wing political militants, “go on vacation” to avoid political persecution. Hamburger considers the transition from childhood to adolescence extremely important. “Adults are always interested in revisiting this time in their lives”, he says. For the director, telling the story during a rather grisly but culturally vibrant period in Brazilian history seemed rather fortunate. “From the beginning I had decided that this would not be a film about the dictatorship. I just wanted to use it as a background to enrich my story”.
Hamburger also revealed that his goal was to make a film that would make the public reflect and get in touch with its own feelings. “I once heard Wim Wenders say that his favorite films were those in which gaps are found between the photograms. Those words have been stuck with me and I`ve tried to follow this in my films”, he says. Naturally, the story of a boy apart from his parents who are being chased down by the military dictatorship would be an excellent candidate for a melodrama. According to the director, one of his worries during the shootings was to avoid such an easy appeal. “I paid special attention to this during the whole production process. I shot and, many a times had to redo it to be sure that I had not fallen into this trap”, he says.
The director made it a point to emphasize the importance of teamwork in the outcome of a film. He says that, "A film, in its qualities and flaws, is a joint creation". For thinking this way, Hamburger considers himself quite rigorous when it comes to putting together his team. "I don`t choose the professionals who will work with me just by evaluating their technical qualities or their resumés. I really value empathy". Just before shooting, he was quite excited to see that the whole team was keeping to the initial proposal. "I joke with them by comparing them to the national soccer team of 1970, which for many people was the best team of all times. Our production team is not the best. We are not better than anyone, but there is not doubt that we play in tune", he concludes.