A collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the annual Premiere Brazil! festival introduces New York audiences to original and accomplished work by both new and established Brazilian filmmakers.
The ninth edition of the festival shines a light on the strength and vivacity of recent Brazilian film production with several promising debuts, including the opening-night feature Craft, Gustavo Pizzi’s fictive portrait of the ups and downs of a creative personality; and Toniko Melo’s VIPs, a stylish, fictionalized look at a real-life con artist. Other films mine historical subject matter to offer new perspectives on the present, including Carlos Adriano’s Santos Dumont’s Mutoscope; Silvio Tendler’s Utopia and Barbarism; and Flavia Castro’s Diary, Letters, Revolutions….
MoMA and MoMA PS1 also pay special tribute to Cao Guimarães, an artist whose work is equally at home in galleries and movie theaters. Several of the artist’s haunting, evocative documentaries and film essays will be screened at MoMA, and a selection of looped short films will be on view at MoMA PS1 on July 16 and 17.
Premiere Brazil!is organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art; and Ilda Santiago, Director, the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival.
The exhibition is generously supported by the Consulate General of Brazil in New York and by Marjorie Andrade and Richard Kandel.
Schedule
Riscado (Craft). 2010. Directed by Gustavo Pizzi. With Karine Teles, Camilo Pellegrini, Otávio Müller. 85 min. Bianca is a talented young actress trying to get her career off the ground, but so far her jobs have been limited to impersonating movie divas and promoting events. After auditioning for a major international film,s he finally gets her big break with a director who, inspired by her personality and her work, molds the character into a version of Bianca. Is this a chance of a lifetime? Pizzi portrays the casual cruelty of the competitive world in which we live, and heightens the drama not through melodrama or exaggerated scenarios but by picking the perfect protagonist: an actress. Craft was cowritten with the astounding Karine Teles, who inhabits the role of Bianca with heartbreaking poignancy. New York Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Gustavo Pizzi. Thursday, July 14, 8pm*; Friday, July 22, 4pm; Sunday, July 24, 2pm
Chico Xavier. 2010. Directed by Daniel Filho. Based on the novel The Lives of Chico Xavier by Marcel Souto Maior. With Ângelo Antônio, Matheus Costa, Tony Ramos. 125 min. “No one can go back and create a new beginning; but anyone can start again and create a new ending.” This was one of the many messages that Spiritist medium Chico Xavier (1910–2002) received from his spiritual guide, Emmanuel, and shared with those around him. In his 92 years, Xavier worked incessantly, producing over 400 books through the use of “psychography,” orspirit writing, and dedicating his life to philanthropy. He garnered a devotedfollowing as well as national controversy. To his admirers, he was a saint. To nonbelievers, he was an intriguing character at least—as the film so richly illustrates. U.S. Premiere. Friday, July 15, 5pm; Thursday, July 21, 4:30pm; Friday, July 22, 4pm
VIPs. 2010. Directed by Toniko Melo. With Wagner Moura, Arieta Corrêa, Gisele Fróes. 96 min. A spinner of tall tales turns into a reluctant con man in this energetic tale based on the real life story of the bluffer Marcelo da Rocha. As a child, Marcelo’s one ambition was to fly planes; as an adult, our anti-hero stumbles upon his dream when he becomes a pilot for a drug trafficking enterprise. Dangerous escapades, money, and high-powered friends follow; soon he’s being taken for the brother of the president of Gol Airlines, and that’s only the beginning…. The tone is breezy and the situations funny, rendering the film as seductive as its main character. VIPs garnered all the main prizes at the 2010 Rio Film Festival. International Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Toniko Melo. Friday, July 15, 7:30pm*; Wednesday, July 20, 8pm
Fim do sem fim (The End of the Endless). 2001. Directed by Cao Guimarães, Beto Magalhães, and Lucas Bambozzi. 92 min. Filmed in 10 Brazilian states, this feature-length documentary tackles the imminent disappearance of certain jobs and occupations in Brazil, focusing on the inventiveness and resistance of man vis-à-vis technological and cultural changes. The project was recorded in Super 8, 16mm, and video, giving texture and life to the images as they coalesce into a portrait of Brazil’s changing economic landscape. U.S. Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Cao Guimarães. Saturday, July 16, 2pm*; Wednesday, July 27, 4pm
Amor? 2010. Directed by João Jardim. With Lília Cabral, Eduardo Moskovis, Letícia Colin. 100 min. The question mark is key in the title of this film, a meditation on the uncertain and precarious nature of love. Drawn from real interviews, the film features testimonials from relationships gone wrong—stories including all forms of violence and pain, both physical and psychological— interpreted by actors and actresses in unadorned, testimonialstyle shots. Interspersed with the characters’ frank portrayals of jealousy and guilt, passion and power, are contrasting scenes of a more poetic ideal of male-female relationships—but the sting of the harrowing stories is not easily pushed aside. International Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by João Jardim. Saturday, July 15, 5:30pm*; Wednesday, July 27, 7pm
Diário de uma busca (Diary, Letters, Revolutions…). 2010. France/Brazil. Directed by Flávia Castro. 105 min. The director tells the story of her father, Brazilian activist Celso Afonso Gay de Castro, whose life was intertwined with the political struggles that traumatized Latin America starting in the 1960s. The documentary maps a journey through the countries where Celso A. Castro was exiled and where Flávia spent her childhood—Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and France. The filmmaker, often with her mother as guide, examines the day-today life of the leftist militant generation of the 1960s and 1970s as she traces her father’s personal history—a story that began with a dream of political ideals and ended with a premature death shrouded in mystery. U.S. Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Flávia Castro. Sunday, July 17, 2:30pm; Monday, July 25, 4pm
Utopia e barbárie (Utopia and Barbarism). 2009. Directed by Silvio Tendler. 120 min. Painstakingly assembled from an amazing array of found footage, Silvio Tender’s historical documentary applies a quote from Oscar Wilde—“A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at”—to the world that emerged after World War II, taking the concept to the revolutions of 1968 and beyond. It examines the utopias that were born and brought to life—and the barbarism that punctuated them—with startling images and testimonies, creating a moving portrait of a generation that dreamed of changing the world and fought for freedom through a global movement. U.S. Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Silvio Tendler. Sunday, July 17, 5pm*; Saturday, July 23, 1:30 pm
Noitada de samba foco de resistência (Samba’s Evening). 2010. Directed by Cély Leal. 75 min. In 1971, under Brazil’s military dictatorship, Jorge Coutinho and Leonides Bayer began holding weekly “Samba Evenings” at Teatro Opinião in Rio de Janeiro, importing popular musicians from the suburbs to entertain Rio’s elite. Radical in both concept and execution, the series transformed the theater into a symbol of political and cultural resistance over its 617 performances in 13 years. Samba’s Evening recounts this history through music, rare footage, and interviews with Alcione, Beth Carvalho, D. Yvone Lara, Eliana Pittman, Elton Medeiros, Gilberto Braga, Martinho da Vila, Maurício Sherman, and others whose stories powerfully evoke the period. International Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Cély Leal, and Jorge Coutinho, Leonides Bayer. Sunday, July 17, 7:45pm*; Tuesday, July 19, 4:30pm
Santos Dumont: Pré-cineasta? (Santos Dumont’s Mutoscope: Early Cinema and Found Footage Film). 2010. Directed by Carlos Adriano. 64 min. This essay-documentary employs interviews and documents to conjure a poetic portrait of a bygone era, putting its own unique spin on the tradition of early and found footage re-appropriation cinema. Adriano uses an unknown reel of photocards, which he found and restored himself, from a mutoscope film shot in London in 1901. The reel depicts Santos Dumont, a Brazilian aviator and inventor who lived from 1873 to 1932, explaining his airship to Charles Rolls, the future founder of Rolls-Royce. The dovetailing of early 20th-century inventions is the basis for a sensitive exploration of early cinema, supplemented by illuminating contributions from scholars and other professionals. U.S. Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Carlos Adriano. Monday, July 18, 4:30pm*; Sunday, July 24, 5pm
Ex isto (Ex It). 2010. Directed by Cao Guimarães. With João Miguel. 86 min. Guimarães provides a possible answer to poet Paulo Leminski’s question in Catatau (the Finnegans Wake of Brazilian literature): “And what if René Descartes had come to Brazil along with Mauríco de Nassau?” In the film, Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, goes on a tropical journey in a hallucinogen-induced daze, investigating matters of geometry and optics and wrangling with doubts in the face of phenomena beyond reason and logic. There is very little dialogue in this film of informal time travel, except for some voiceovers using texts by Descartes and Leminski. U.S. Premiere. *Introduction and discussion by Cao Guimarães. Monday, July 18, 8pm*; Saturday, July 23, 4pm
Acidente (Accident). 2006. Directed by Cao Guimarães. 72 min. Inspired by the names of 20 towns in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, this beautifully photographed montage uses accidental discovery as an organizing principle to create a poem from everyday life. Tuesday, July 19, 8pm; Saturday, July 23, 8pm
Andarilho (Drifter). 2006. Directed by Cao Guimarães. 80 min. Between the cities of Montes Claros and Pedra Azul, three lonely drifters follow different paths, each establishing intimate relationships with various elements of a transitory world. This second installment in Cao Guimarães’s planned trilogy about solitude continues his daring visual exploration of existential themes. The filmmaker captures the relationship between thought and movement, geography and introspection, through breathtaking shots of human forms against the surrounding landscape. Wednesday, July 20, 4:30pm; Tuesday, July 26, 7pm
Alma do osso (The Soul of the Bone). 2004. Directed by Cao Guimarães. 74 min. The film gradually reveals the isolated existence of Dominguinhos, a 72-year old man who lives inside a cave that juts off from a rock mountain. The Soul of the Bone is composed of long silences in which the hermit executes his daily chores, such as cooking and cleaning, and of images, shot in video and Super 8 film, that transcend his territory. Silence is the normal state in which time passes; speech is the exception. U.S. Premiere. Thursday, July 21, 8pm; Monday, July 25, 7pm
Rua de mao dupla (Two-Way Street). 2002. Directed by Cao Guimarães. 72 min. Two-Way Street is the result of a cinematic and social experiment: People who didn’t know each other exchanged houses for 24 hours. Each couple brought along a portable video camera and had total freedom to film whatever they wanted during the swap. The participants tried to construct a “mental image” ofthe “other” while surrounded by their personal objects and their domestic universe. At the end of the experience, each participant gave a personal report on how they imagined the other. Friday, July 22, 7pm*, Tuesday, July 26, 4pm
All films in Portuguese with English subtitles
All screenings at The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, 212-708-9400
