Arquivo

MOSTRA

2020

The year 2020 will be remembered for Covid-19 and the consequences brought by the pandemic. Contrary to all predictions made at the turn of the year, 2020 has been a time of mourning, introspection, and reflection.

From China, a country that has been talked about a lot this year, came the artwork of the 44th São Paulo International Film Festival. It is an emblematic photo by the great filmmaker Jia Zhangke, in which a man is seen burning incense for the statue of WenQuxing, the legendary deity of literature and writing. Jia also brings us the documentary Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue and the short film Visit, in which Covid is the main character. 

Coronation, by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, addresses Covid-19 through powerful images secretly shot in Wuhan, while Abel Ferrara shows us the pandemic’s arrival in Europe in the documentary Sportin’ Life.

Covid-19 is not only present on the screens, it is still among us. With theaters closed and uncertainty remaining, the 44th Mostra was forced to take place online and in drive-in cinemas only. Unlike 2009, when for the first time Mostra had a selection of its program online (the first online film festival in the world!) to expand access to people outside of São Paulo, today the internet is what allows us to exist. It also allows Mostra to be present all over Brazil, with its full program available everywhere.

We hope Mostra will be a bit like the incense smoke that symbolizes comfort, purification, and healing in so many religions and rituals. The unusual circumstances have not been of detriment to the selection of films for the 2020 edition, which is strong and full of surprises, coming through the clouds and waves of the internet.

As in all editions, Mostra presents a vast panorama of world cinema, including renowned authors and new directors. In this year’s program, we will also screen films that have won awards at festivals such as Berlin, Sundance, Tribeca, Toronto, Rotterdam, and Venice, as well as some of the world’s leading documentary festivals.

For the first time, the Humanity Award will be given not to an individual, but a group of people: the employees of the Brazilian Cinematheque. In a very troubled year for the institution, its employees showed a moving commitment to our heritage and our memory.

The second Humanity Award will honor the monumental career of master Frederick Wiseman. In a year where elections will take place in many parts of the world, he gives us City Hall, a film that

helps us understand the difference between a politician and a statesman, as well as the difference between government officials and civil servants.

Producer Sara Silveira will receive the Leon Cakoff Prize for her persistent and courageous career of more than 30 years, and for her efforts to reveal new Brazilian filmmakers and make their voices heard around the world.

The 44th Mostra also pays tribute to filmmaker Fernando Coni Campos by screening three of his films: Voyage to the End of the World (1968), Sweet Thieves (1977) and O Mágico e o Delegado (1983). 

However, Mostra is not only about films. In its fourth edition, Forum Mostra will be held online, making it possible for international guests to participate. In addition, master Ruy Guerra will teach an online course entitled “The History of Cinema according to Ruy Guerra”. We hope that watching and discussing films will bring us a variety of smoke with different perfumes that will help alleviate our afflictions. 

We thank our partners and sponsors, who have remained by our side even in troubled times.

Have a good Mostra!

Renata de Almeida

SÃO PAULO’S SECRETARIAT OF CULTURE AND CREATIVE ECONOMY

Just like all other cultural events, film festivals had to find innovative ways to reach the audience and to play their fundamental role in the context of the pandemic and the need for social distancing.

The 44th edition of the São Paulo International Film Festival, the biggest and most important event of its kind in Brazil, is a good example of how to adapt and to reinvent. By hosting its screenings and activities online, it will fully fulfill its mission even in adverse circumstances.

The São Paulo’s Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy is honored to support Mostra in this new format, which also leads to greater reach and access. It will be a reference for other events and sectors.

Sérgio Sá Leitão

Secretary of Culture and Creative Economy for the State of São Paulo

SÃO PAULO’S MUNICIPAL CULTURAL SECRETARIAT AND SPCINE

The São Paulo’s Municipal Cultural Secretariat and Spcine are part of the new edition of the São Paulo International Film Festival, one of the city’s most important cultural events.

In such an unusual year in every aspect of society, the new edition of the traditional event is a testament to the hard work of all professionals involved in this celebration of world cinema.

Screening films from many different countries, the São Paulo International Film Festival invites viewers to immerse themselves in a wide variety of cinematographic styles. It gives audiences the opportunity to see Brazilian and international productions which have stood out in traditional film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, and Venice.

Part of the festival’s program will be available at Spcine Play, the streaming platform of Spcine: audiences anywhere in Brazil will be able to watch some of Mostra’s films online and for free.

Mostra gives us access to award-winning films, and allows us to dive into cultures and traditions through the eyes of filmmakers from different countries and continents. The audience will be able to watch these films and to participate in debates on various topics.

May everyone have a good festival!

ITAÚ

In a year when culture was forced to find new paths —to reinvent practices and ways of reaching both old and new audiences—, the importance of supporting cultural initiatives is even more evident. These initiatives mobilize many professionals and have the potential to be formative experiences. It is with this conviction that Itaú celebrates eight years of partnership with the São Paulo International Film Festival.

Mostra reaches its 44th edition maintaining the strong program of previous years. As usual, Itaú Cultural (IC) will be a part of this program: check itaucultural.org.br for information about the festival, as well as other relevant content about the arts.

For the first time, Mostra will be digital, and the program, held online. Though this change was due to the pandemic, it is interesting to note how streaming has become one of the main ways for audiences to watch audiovisual work. Streaming films and television shows was already a part of our daily lives; this has now been intensified.

Before the Covid-19 crisis, IC had already been developing digital exhibitions in line with those held in its physical space. For the last several months, the need for social distancing led us to recreate and transport our program to the digital world. A wide variety of activities were promoted, touching on topics such as old age, romance, territory and fantasy. 

IC’s program is reinforced by educational content and often accompanied by workshops and training activities. This is the case, for example, of EAD Projeções, a distance learning program about language and the creative process in contemporary Brazilian cinema, to be held until December. 

These activities add to the organization’s initiatives to support culture. During this period of crisis, IC launched emergency funds such as Arte como Respiro. The fund designed for the audiovisual sector received 3,578 submissions from all five regions of Brazil, of which 200 were selected. These and other works will be screened on our website as part of the Arte como Respiro Festival, which will run through to December. 

Follow Itaú Cultural on social media for more information on our activities and to find videos, articles and interviews. Also check out the Itaú Cultural’s Encyclopedia of Brazilian Art and Culture —at enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br— for in-depth information about our filmmakers, visual artists, dancers, musicians, writers and more.

Itaú Cultural

SESC

The first edition of the São Paulo International Film Festival took place at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) in 1977. It celebrated the museum’s 30th anniversary, and it added to an institutional culture of the arts that was then becoming mature. As a result of this maturity, today Mostra is its own entity and it celebrates its 44th edition. A remarkable achievement in a time when the mechanisms that allow us to make and to share art, and which are so essential to our civilization, are being put to the test.

As if that was not enough, the unprecedented phenomenon of the Covid-19 pandemic imposes restrictions on symbolic and social practices such as cinema, in which people gather around aesthetic objects that give weight to our existence —on both individual and collective levels. However, this experience is such a key part of our social imaginary that it also gives us strength and innovative resources to imagine new ways of keeping it vibrant and alive. This includes

searching for solutions to guarantee that initiatives and organizations that are responsible for safeguarding film repertoire, and making it circulate, will continue to do so.

With that in mind, the 44th Mostra pays tribute to the employees of the Brazilian Cinematheque, in recognition of their efforts to continue with the activities of this eight-decade-old institution to preserve films and help them reach the audience. Helping films circulate is also Mostra’s most important contribution. By bringing attention to both international and national productions, it provides access to filmographies that are crucial to contemporary times. More than two dozen countries are represented in this edition, including Brazil.

Mostra will make use of different platforms to bypass the present limitations, showcasing films in both online and drive-in screenings. Different partnerships will make this strategy possible and Sesc is a frequent collaborator. With joint efforts and alternative ways of screening movies, this edition will likely become a milestone in Mostra’s history, giving it strength in a time when the most important thing is to remain active and influential.

Danilo Santos de Miranda

Regional Director of Sesc São Paulo

CPFL ENERGIA

For the sixth consecutive year, we give our support to the São Paulo International Film Festival, which will hold its 44th edition online. In Brazil, Mostra is the most important collection of films that were screened in other festivals around the world. Through the sponsorship of CPFL Energia, we are once again proud to be a part of Mostra.

Audiovisual production is an important part of CPFL Institute’s projects. Television programs such as Café Filosófico CPFL and Café Expresso, which air on TV Cultura, have been independently produced by the institute since its foundation, in 2003. Sala Umuarama, a screening space located in our headquarters in the city of Campinas, has also been operating since the very beginning. The theater promotes regular and free of charge screenings as part of Mostra Cinema e Reflexão (which is now taking place online).

We have established partnerships to promote itinerant cinema and outdoor screenings, with projects such as Cinesolar and Cine Autorama. And we also support important film festivals in the country, such as the São Paulo Latin American Film Festival and Mostra.

By maintaining this network around cinema, we reinforce our belief that culture can transform our communities. Let’s enjoy this year’s films and have a great 44th Mostra.

CPFL Institute - energy that transforms reality

HUMANITY AWARD - FREDERICK WISEMAN

One of the most important and authentic directors working today, Frederick Wiseman has dedicated himself to documentary filmmaking for over five decades. In City Hall (2020), which will be screened at the 44th Mostra, Wiseman, 90, returns to the great theme of his career: social institutions and their relationship with their cities and communities.

In the new film, the director goes inside the Boston City Hall to create a visual essay about the meanings of democracy. The city’s mayor, Marty Walsh, is an advocate for the environment, immigrants’ rights, and gender equality, while the employees maintain what we might call a “public spirit”, to use a term that is at the same time generic and precise.

Like many of Wiseman’s previous works, City Hall helps us understand the United States by taking a unique look at everyday life and at people who work at institutions. Wiseman is from a Jewish family and was born in Boston in 1930. After serving in the army, he lived in Paris for a few years. Upon returning to the United States, he taught law before finding his vocation in filmmaking.

Wiseman made his film debut as a producer in 1963. But it didn’t take very long for him to pick up the camera to investigate his country. His first documentary, Titicut Follies (1967), portrays the lives of patients at Bridgewater State Hospital, an institution for prisoners with mental illness. The film can be understood as a letter of intent, as it reveals many elements that would become central to his career in both themes and style.

Although Wiseman himself does not like to be defined by the concepts of observational cinema or cinéma vérité, it is a fact that Titicut Follies was a forerunner of a certain way for the camera to relate to what is being filmed. Echoes of Wiseman’s debut reverberate not only in films that were released immediately after but also in what is being produced to this day.

Since then, Wiseman has been creating an x-ray of American institutions. His camera has taken us to schools, libraries, universities, public spaces, government agencies, zoos, boxing gyms, and many other places that are part of the imagery and routine of everyday life.

He consciously built a filmography that registers and maps the symbols that surround us and are somewhat definitive to our contemporary identity.

In this process, the filmmaker wittily and patiently turns himself to the human gestures that permeate the world of each of his films. His interest is not in these places as institutional or bureaucratic totems, but in the people who occupy them. And the discovery of what is human can happen through speech, but also through faces, gestures, and movements.

Wiseman’s meticulous and patient camera, which never seems to interfere with what is happening in front of him, knows how to capture the greatness of the present and the seemingly banal. The 48 documentaries he has made to date, both for cinema and American public television, have won prizes at the world’s most important film festivals and earned him an honorary Oscar in 2017.

Besides screening City Hall, this year’s Mostra will give Wiseman the Humanity Award for his contribution to cinema and to our understanding of contemporary times.

HUMANITY AWARD - EMPLOYEES OF BRAZILIAN CINEMATHEQUE

The Humanity Award was created in 2004 to pay tribute to authors whose work highlights humanist values and helps us coexist. Many great names in world cinema have received this homage, including Manoel de Oliveira, Abbas Kiarostami, Andrzej Wajda, Agnès Varda, Mahamat Saleh Haroun, Ermanno Olmi, and Patricio Guzmán.

But never before had the Humanity Award been given to a group of people. This decision was made on an impulse, in a moment of indignation and —why not?— passion. It was made when I was invited to participate in an online meeting with politicians, filmmakers, lawyers, and a representative of the employees of the Brazilian Cinematheque, Gabriela Souza de Queiroz, the coordinator of the Documentation Centre.

At this online meeting, I had the opportunity to hear Gabriela describe the situation faced by the institution’s employees. To illustrate this situation, she described an episode that had occurred that same day. Gabriela was supposed to join the online meeting, but the Cinematheque was closed, with no electricity and a broken generator. To be able to join the meeting and defend the Cinematheque, she had to ask the doorman, who had not received his salary for months, to open the door, and the electrician, who also had not been paid for months, to fix the generator.

Several thoughts came to my mind. One of them was: “Someone should give an award to these people.” I also had time to remember everyone from the Cinematheque with whom I spent time over the years; the devotion with which Olga Futemma (former director of the institution and manager of the collection until last August) showed me the entire restoration and conservation sector; the energy of Leandro Pardí and Sérgio Silva as we talked about Day of Audiovisual Heritage at Mostra’s office; the certain bad mood of Carlos Augusto Calil (former director of the institution) as he complained about the noise at the free span of the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP), where we dared to pay tribute to critic Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes; and all the employees with whom we were able to collaborate in all the many activities we have done together in the last 30 years.

Through its troubled journey, which included fires, different managements, and changes in headquarters, the Cinematheque resisted because of the will and resilience of those who worked there maintaining a collection of around 245,000 rolls of film, corresponding to 30,000 titles produced since the beginning of the 20th century —including fiction, documentaries, newsreels, advertising films, and family records, both from Brazil and abroad.

If in its origin the Humanity Award was created to highlight humanist works that help us coexist, today the award highlights not just our responsibility to each other, but also our commitment to those who will come after us. It honors people who understand that the audiovisual heritage that we have today is not ours. As all heritage, it is only lent to us. It is our duty t o preserve it for future generations.

And because paying tribute is also about gratitude, we thank the employees of the Brazilian Cinematheque for preserving our memory in such a difficult year. It is with great honor that we give them the Humanity Award of the 44th São Paulo International Film Festival.

Renata de Almeida

PRÊMIO LEON CAKOFF - SARA SILVEIRA

The heavy labour force of art. That was how Sara Silveira defined her profession in an interview with Antônio Abujamra for Provocações, a show broadcast by TV Cultura. The interviewer, on the other hand, defined her as “the matriarch of São Paulo’s film production”. And he was not exaggerating: at age 70, Sara has produced about 40 feature films and is renowned for discovering new talents of Brazilian cinema and showing their work around the world. Many of those talents are now established and renowned themselves.

Sara was born in Porto Alegre, the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, in 1950. Her passion for cinema began early. As a child and a teenager, she spent many afternoons at Cine Avenida, a movie theater where her cousin worked as a manager. But her film career would begin much later. Due to family pressure, she graduated in law, and during the Brazilian military regime, she studied legal science in France.

In the late 1970s, after traveling around Europe and spending time in India with a group of friends, Sara returned to Brazil, handed her degrees to her father, and decided to follow her dream of working in film. She says her career began empirically. First, she worked as a production assistant in films such as Nasce uma Mulher (1983), by Roberto Santos, and Happily Ever After (1984), by Bruno Barreto. Next, she worked as a production director in films such as The Lady From the Shanghai Cinema (1987), by Guilherme de Almeida Prado, and Anjos do Arrabalde (1987), by Carlos Reichenbach —a filmmaker also born in Porto Alegre, with whom she would later form a great working partnership.

The next step was to take on executive production until she finally became a producer. In 1991, Carlos Reichenbach (1945-2012) —or Carlão, as Sara affectionately called him— invited her to found the production company Dezenove Som e Imagens. This was only one year after President Fernando Collor de Melo extinguished Embrafilme, which was responsible for financing and promoting Brazilian films. It was a period of “devastation” for cinema, as Sara puts it.

Yet it was right at that time, in the midst of crisis, that Sara saw an opportunity. In the 1990s, she and Carlão were teaching at the University of São Paulo (USP) and constantly around students who were making their first films. It was then that she realized that feature film debuts had great potential for an international career “because major festivals are honored to discover new talents.”

Since then, Sara has produced approximately two dozen first films, as well as some second and third works by emerging filmmakers. “The most difficult thing about a movie debut is securing the money to produce it. But I really like to work with first-time filmmakers and to accompany them in their second movie. By the third one, they are flying by themselves”, she said, in an interview with Encontros de Cinema, a program of Itaú Cultural.

Today, Sara runs Dezenove in partnership with Maria Ionescu. Together they have produced (or co-produced) many successful Brazilian films, such as Brainstorm (2000, 24th Mostra), by Laís Bodanzky; Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures (2005, screened at the 30th and the 41st editions of Mostra), by Marcelo Gomes; Fake Blond (2007), by Reichenbach; Oh My God! (2007), by Monique Gardenberg; Person (2007), by Marina Person; Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (2009), by Anna Muylaert; Hard Labor (2011) and Good Manners (2017, 41st Mostra), both directed by Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas; and The Moving Creatures (2012, 36th Mostra) by Caetano Gotardo.

The most recent film that Sara produced is All the Dead Ones, a drama directed by Marco Dutra and Caetano Gotardo which will have a special screening at the 44th Mostra. The film premiered in February 2020 at the Berlin Film Festival, where Sara gave one of the most passionate speeches of her career. “To make a film is to engage in social, educational, and creative work. Today, we face enormous difficulties because of a government that attacks our culture, our education, and our audiovisual sector. But with our films, we show how hard we are working. Seven hundred people are directly or indirectly involved in the making of a single film. And as long as I am alive, they will have to listen and they will have to see my films. I don’t need weapons —I need strength, love, courage, and heroic moments to endure what we are living.”

For her persistence and her courage to make cinema in Brazil, and to celebrate her long and successful career, the 44th Mostra awards producer Sara Silveira with the Leon Cakoff Prize.

TRIBUTE - A LOOK AT FERNANDO CONI CAMPOS

The São Paulo International Film Festival offers an immersion in the work of Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Coni Campos through three of his seven feature films. It is a rare opportunity to revisit the universe of this original author, who was born in the state of Bahia, in the area known as Recôncavo. Interested in visual arts, in the 1940s he moved to Salvador, where he spent time with artist Rubem Valentim and poet Raymundo Amado. In 1952, he left for São Paulo to study drawing and printmaking with Lívio Abramo at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP). Cinema and semiotics were combined and expanded in a dialogue with Ruben Martins and Geraldo de Barros.

Before making his film debut with A Morte em 3 Tempos (1964), starring Paulo Emílio Sales Gomes, Coni worked as an illustrator for Lúcio Costa at Novacap, filmed the city of Brasília, and published NOME, his first book of poems, with woodcuts by Newton Cavalcanti. He experimented with graphic design working with Aloísio Magalhães; studied with Max Bense, from Ulm University in Germany; and participated in the VIII National Modern Art Salon in Rio de Janeiro.

For Coni, cinema comes to reconcile word and image and to transform painting and poetry. In the midst of dictatorship and the waves of counterculture, he wrote and directed Voyage to the End of the World (1968), winner of the Silver Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival.

This feature had great impact on filmmakers like Glauber Rocha and Júlio Bressane. The latter worked on the movie as an assistant director and thought of it as “cinema reflecting on itself”. A precursor of essay film, Voyage to the End of the World reinvents Brás Cubas, the character created by Machado de Assis, and combines pop references with music from the Brazilian artistic movement known as Tropicália.

Defined by his friend Mário Carneiro as “a Franciscan with a Dionysian side”, the director appears in his own film as a friar, acting opposite the “nun” played by Talulah Abramo. Paraphrasing Machado, the narrator says: “The defect of this film is you, the viewer. You are in a hurry to grow old and the film moves slowly.” A new digression appears in the dialogue between Jofre Soares and a young woman who was invited to a party while visiting the set. In this scene, which was added to the script, she says: “I am a continuity error”.

In contrast to feverish delirium, the film takes on a liturgical and existential dimension that bothered critics on the left. It took a while for Jean-Claude Bernadet to recognize the power of the film, which did not fit into the underground aesthetic. “My heart swings between what is erudite and what is popular,” confessed Fernando Coni Campos, who showed his love for painting and popular culture in his short films.

The crises of a painter are at the center of Um Homem e Sua Jaula (1969), an adaptation of Matéria de Memória, by Carlos Heitor Cony, which starred Helena Ignez and Hugo Carvana and was banned by censors. For contradicting the idea of “a tropical country blessed by God”, his musical Uma Nega Chamada Tereza (1970) was profoundly altered by censors and the producers, who had the final cut. The poster advertised “a structuralist, colorful, pathetic and completely crazy musical”, and the films showed a member of the Black Panthers trying to convince Brazilian musician Jorge Ben to adopt the anthem “burn, baby, burn”. In the same year, the filmmaker showed a more experimental vein in Sangue Quente em Tarde Fria, a comedy thriller co-directed by Renato Newman, also responsible for the daring editing of Voyage to the End of the World.

With a stellar cast, including Ruth de Souza and Léa Garcia, and narrated by Antonio Pitanga and Milton Gonçalves, Sweet Thieves (1977) has a brilliant performance by Procópio Mariano, and by the talented Célia Maracajá and Tamara Taxman. Winner of the best supporting actor prize at the Brasília Film Festival, Lutero Luiz makes use of his circus repertoire in the role of a double traitor. The one who steals the show is Grande Otelo, in a role that satirizes the typical figure of the misunderstood screenwriter in search of a
director. Sweet Thieves praises the rituals of “guerrilla filmmaking” and reveals its inspiration in the work of Oswald de Andrade in its working title (Tupi or Not Tupi?) and the “anthropophagic banquet” of the opening scene.

During Carnival, a group of Native-Brazilians rob the equipment of an American film crew and take it to the hills of Pavãozinho. Instead of selling the equipment, they decide to make a film from the perspective of the Pavãozinho community. As the plot is being debated, two directors emerge: Luquinha (Pitanga) and Fuleiro (Gonçalves), whose characters are ironic references to Luchino Visconti/Jean-Luc Godard and Samuel Fuller. Both use catchphrases that are typical of outsider filmmakers and articulate their allegorical ecstasy while improvising. Luquinha is thought, Fuleiro is action!

The thieves decide to film a script inspired by a song of the samba school Império Serrano, which chronicles the Brazilian independence movement known as Inconfidência Mineira. They obtain film negatives with Jean-Claude Rouch (a parody of Jean Rouch) through critic Jean-Claude Bernardet. In the movie, he plays a French ethnographer who is working on his thesis and investing in film production made “by the people, about the people, and for the people.” The conflict is quite metalinguistic, as Silvério (Lutero Luiz) makes two accusations: in the film, he turns the “marginal filmmakers” in to the police; and in the film within the film, he denounces Tiradentes (as Joaquim Silvério did in real life). The film negatives are finally apprehended and Ladrões de Cinema (the film within the film) achieves cult status among international critics, personified by actress Luiza Barreto Leite. As the minds behind this masterpiece, Luquinha and Fuleiro attend the premiere in handcuffs. And Mano Décio da Viola stands out in his support to Ladrões, with his a cappella singing of a poem by Castro Alves. It is not by chance that Coni envisioned this film being watched by crowds in an audiovisual parade.

In his final film, O Mágico e o Delegado (1983), which won the top prize at the Brasília Film Festival, Coni returned to the fantastic worlds of childhood and the circus to recreate a microcosm of Brazil during the collapse of the so-called “economic miracle.” Hungry for freedom, the population juggles to survive the illusions forged by the military government. The light of Mário Carneiro, the magician Nelson Xavier, singer Tânia Alves and chief of police Lutero Luiz all symbolize the arduous struggle of artists against censorship. The original score by Nelson Jacobina adds magic to the film, evoking Carmen Miranda and Mozart. O Mágico e o Delegado was popular with Brazilian audiences and was screened at the Rotterdam Film Festival.

It was a meteoric journey, with seven features, 11 shorts, an unpublished book of poems, unfinished films, and countless drawings preserved by the family. The work of Fernando Coni continues to be an enigma to be solved and restored. In 2003, Azougue published the book Cinema, Sonhos e Lucidez, a compilation of essays, conferences, poems, and images that reveal the interdisciplinary and undisciplined path of an artist who dreamed to live and lived to dream.

Joel Pizzini - filmmaker and researcher