Flávio Tambellini, Ricardo Elias and Tata Amaral
Brazilian Youth, according to Three Directors
Ricardo Elias: A Caring but Critical Relationship with São Paulo cityAfter a winning experience with his first film, Passing By (winner at the Gramado Film Festival and awarded the Public Bandeira Paulista Award at the 27th Mostra), Ricardo Elias now introduces The 12 Labours, his second feature film, already awarded at the San Sebastián Film Festival, in Spain. What’s the price of so many victories for a tyro director? Elias confesses he started The 12 Labours right after finishing his first film, so the awards did not interfere too much. But he points out that although he loved some things about Passing By, he didn’t want to repeat them. As for the themes, both films are similar. The director explains that aesthetically The 12 Labours is more elaborate since in the first film he searched only for the essentialities.
Elias always has São Paulo city, his hometown, very present in his work. In The 12 Labours, the cosmopolitan metropolis is constantly seen. He explains that it’s not an attempt to find solutions for the city, but to simply depict it. After all, the director has a different vision of it, even though daily scenes are shown. His objective is to reflect on people, particularly on young people of low income families. Elias says Brazilian cinema is produced by people that came from wealthier families, and therefore it becomes a dilemma to show the poor. He doesn’t run away from this dilemma but he also doesn’t want to show just crime, accidents and difficulties low income families go through, because that would be easy. He also wants to show the other side of it. Without taking sides, he thinks his films have, at the same time, a caring and critical relationship with the city.
In The 12 Labours, the main character’s name is Héracles (Hercules, semi Greek god), because Elias did a free interpretation of the myth by using irony to show the oppressing reality of the character. He is a motorcycle courier, has just left Febem [Youth Imprisonment State Service] and he’ll have to do a Herculean effort to change his life. The film was bought by Imovision distributor, and shall arrive in the commercial circuit around February or March 2007. Elias hasn’t yet defined his next project, but he’s considering a documentary about choreographer Ivaldo Bertazzo, for example.
Tata Amaral: The Birth of Feminine Archetype
With the screening of her third feature film Antonia, filmmaker Tata Amaral concludes her trilogy about women. This project started when she was finishing A Starry Sky (1996), her very first feature film. The film portrays a grown-up woman, represented by actress Leona Cavalli. Her second film, Through the Window (2000), portrayed the world of an older woman, Laura Cardoso. Now, with Antonia, Amaral is investigating the archetype of a young woman who is represented not only by the title character, but by the four residents of Vila Brasilândia neighborhood, in the outskirts of São Paulo. These are women who will form a hip-hop band central to the plot. They are played by Leilah Moreno, Negra Li (singer who has gone solo), Cindy and Quelynah, who all represent the birth of womanhood, the social flourishing of young women with pure principles.
At the same time, after directing two films that are set indoors, Amaral returns to the outdoors in Sao Paulo city, revisiting themes and sceneries already seen in her short films, such as Poema: Cidade (1986), co-directed by Francisco César Filho (mediator of many debates held at the Mostra’s Lounge), and Viver a Vida (1991). The idea for Antonia has haunted Tata since 1991, when American indie producer Jim Stark told her she needed to make a black film that had music. In Viver a Vida, the main character is an office boy who is out on the noisy streets. In Antonia, as much as urban violence may be present, the noises remain at a distance, except when the main character abandons hip-hop and starts working as a van driver’s assistant. Only then does the noise pollution become extremely noticeable. Anyway, Vila Brasilândia is shown as a home, with Avenida Paulista on the far off horizon.
Amaral interviewed 600 girls who had contact with hip hop - or in other words, who knew how to sing and rhyme - until she had selected the four girls. Rappers usually work by improvising, and this for Amaral was a skill she found strictly necessary. The four tyro actresses are free stylers, which demands good sense of humor and constant attention to what is happening all around. Since this project was developed after three years of intensive research, Amaral is happy to present the many products that were “derived” from the film. Other than the inevitable soundtrack and the well publicized TV series (in five chapters) produced by O2 for Globo TV network that premieres on November 17 (the film premiers on January 2007), Amaral has also prepared a book of short stories she collected from her research, a video installation called “Jukebox 2: A Draft for Antonia”, and, in her “free" time, she started to collect declarations from directors about their creative process to be published in a book. With an eye on the future, Amaral has thought about a sequel (or a second season) for Antonia. She also plans to explore the world of skateboarding portrayed in Toni Brandão’s novel Bagdá, o Skatista [literally, Bagdá, the Skater].
Flávio Tambellini: Extensive Experience in Cinema
With a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Sociology, Flávio Tambellini tried to get away from cinema, but couldn’t do it and followed in his father’s footsteps. Flávio Tambellini (1927/1976) was a film director and critic. In the 30th Mostra’s selection he is showing his second feature film as a director, The Passenger – Adult Secrets. His first feature film, Bufo & Spallanzani, 2001, was based on the book with the same name by Rubem Fonseca, and according to Tambellini, it had literary characters. Although The Passenger is also based on a book that will soon be released, written by Cesário Mello Franco, who is also the film’s screenwriter, the director says that, in fact, he was interested in the story of the boy who goes from childhood to adulthood when his father dies. It’s about the boy’s sexuality, about his inexperience and it’s also a chronicle of Rio de Janeiro, the mixture between shantytowns and Avenida Vieira Souto (where the wealthier class lives, in Ipanema). Besides that, adds Tambellini, “I have a son that age”.
His interest in adapting literary works to the cinema comes from the fact that the story already outlines the character and has the necessary drama to develop the plot. Just like in his previous film, Tambellini says he enjoys mixing young actors with national famous actors in the cast. In The Passenger we can find Giulia Gam, Antônio Calloni and Carolina Ferraz, as well as young Bernardo Marinho and Luiza Mariani. He had the help of Juliana Galdino, assistant to theater director Antunes Filho, to prepare Marinho, but he highlights that, even though he does rehearse, he really likes to improvise. Tambellini goes on to confess that directing actors is what he enjoys doing most. That’s why, in 2007, he’ll direct his first theater play, Some Girls, written by Neil LaBute, with João Miguel (of Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures), Mariana Lima and Camila Pitanga in the cast.
Because of his intense and extensive experience with cinema, since his father was also involved politically with the area as the founder of Cinema National Institute (INC), Tambellini says he knows a filmmaker’s suffering quite well. As he is also a producer and having been an assistant director in the beginning of his career, he affirms that it’s easier to deal with difficulties and not waste any time or money with unnecessary shootings. Such experience gave him a more realistic view of cinema. Even though he says there’s still prejudice from the public towards national cinema, he also recognizes a new generation of spectators arising. But there’s still a big challenge in winning over this public, he says: the distribution funnel. There are a few movie theaters and a lot of competition, he points out and outlines that in festivals like 30th Mostra there is a great number of spectators, but they don’t value national films when they are released commercially. Around thirty copies of The Passenger – Adult Secrets will be released in January 2007, by Califórnia Filmes.