Arquivo

Editorial | Sesc

Physical and imaginary spaces

A possible history of cinema unfolds in parallel to the genres, formats and technical apparatus that this artistic language encompasses. Such chronicle can also be observed, over time, in the set of environments in which different audiences have come into contact with cinematographic works.

At the end of the 19th century, the first cinematographs were placed in improvised tents, as a part of popular fairs. In these environments, which featured puppetry, juggling, theatrical performances, among other attractions, the first technical moving images were witnessed with great curiosity and wonder, caused by the illusion of life being visually reproduced. After a few years, live music was added to these images. This demanded the building of auditoriums similar to concert halls, to accommodate both the audience and the dozens of musicians who made such experiences possible.

Later on, as sound reproduction technologies became increasingly popular, talking pictures were shown in various locations around the world and led to what we call “street movie theaters”, which were then articulated into ever bolder architectural complexes, with simultaneous exhibitions made possible by the numerous screening rooms, often placed inside shopping malls, equipped with three-dimensional visual and sound technologies, among other technical implements.

Alongside movie theaters, domestic spaces also played an essential role in spreading film culture. Television, followed by the arrival of VHS and digital technologies, allowed audiences to access audiovisual productions in their homes. The current context, which includes streaming platforms, is a consequence of that experience and has proven to be of extreme importance for preserving the audiovisual production chain under the uncertainty and limited access to screening rooms brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In its 45th edition, the São Paulo International Film Festival reinforces the broadcasting of worldwide filmographies to Brazilian audiences in the context of expanded cinema. For Sesc, a partner to Mostra since its very first edition, expanding access to audiovisual works is a fundamental measure, as it includes the diversity of narratives and people —viewers, filmmakers and other professionals of the audiovisual industry— in the discursive space of the arts. And this, through a symbolic projection of reality, deepens and makes human experience more complex in its plurality.

Danilo Santos de Miranda
Regional director, Sesc São Paulo

Editorial | Secretaria Municipal de Cultura de São Paulo and Spcine

After a long period of isolation and social distancing, 2021 has been a year of renewed hope with the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine. The city of São Paulo is getting a glimpse of ways to resume its daily activities —and one of its greatest cultural traditions: the São Paulo International Film Festival.

Driven by this feeling and aware of the contribution of the seventh art to strengthening the population’s social and mental health, we, at the São Paulo Municipal Department of Culture and Spcine, received Mostra’s come-back in hybrid format for its 45th edition as a breath of life. The event, which always brings together a wide variety of cinematographic visions, showcases this year a selection of productions from around 50 countries, offering the public films that have prominently circulated in main festivals around the world.

We are happy to build, once again, a partnership that enables the screening of selected titles both in commercial movie theaters and government-owned facilities in the city, such as Centro Cultural da Juventude, in Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, in the North side; Centro de Formação Cultural Cidade Tiradentes, in the East side; and Vale do Anhangabaú, in the historic city center, in which an open air screening will take place. In addition, Circuito Spcine de Cinema will house screenings in Centro Cultural São Paulo, in the Paraíso neighborhood, and Roberto Santos Library, in Ipiranga. Thus, we continue to strengthen the understanding that art and culture should occupy our city’s every corner.

In challenging times like these, having access to ideas, stories and narratives from different regions —whether Brazilian or foreign— allows us to build bridges and envision a healthier future that is responsive to the challenges of our own time. The path is built while walking. Therefore, let us celebrate, cheer and make a toast to these 45 years of the São Paulo International Film Festival, still on the road, still resisting.

Editorial | Itaú

In 2021, Itaú Cultural (IC) took a big step forward in its relationship with cinema: with the launching of platform Itaú Cultural Play (itauculturalplay.com.br), we look to provide a new space for Brazilian audiovisual production by making available, via streaming, a diversified catalog of specially curated films, series and TV shows. At the end of this year, it’ll be our honor to host the 45th São Paulo International Film Festival, our long-time partner, at IC Play.

This is the ninth year of Itaú`s support of Mostra: for almost a decade, movie theaters maintained by the bank have welcomed the event`s program, and so has IC, which has held retrospectives and offered courses related to it. At this time, when we’re all still dealing with Covid-19 —which, despite progress in vaccination, demands from us  attention and care—, Mostra will be held in a hybrid way —online and in person— and a selection of works will be brought to IC Play.

Keep up to date with IC’s other actions in the audiovisual field at itaucultural.org.br. In addition to reports and articles that discuss and get deep into IC Play’s program, you can access Grande Angular, a column dedicated to women in film by journalist Luísa Pécora, and Versões do Tempo, a podcast featuring discussions on Brazilian documentaries of today.

Also, learn more about Escola Itaú Cultural (escola.itaucultural.org.br), which offers courses on arts and cultural policies, among other topics. In this second half of 2021, for example, Escola IC promotes Crítica de Cinema, a course on film criticism (you can watch an open class of this course —História dos Cinemas por Meio da Crítica (History of Cinemas through Criticism), with professor Kênia Freiras— on our website).

Lastly, check out Enciclopédia Itaú Cultural de Arte e Cultura Brasileira, which provides knowledge not only on important filmmakers of the country`s history, but also on musicians, visual artists and writers. Access all entries at enciclopedia.itaucultural.org.br.

Itaú Cultural

45ª Mostra - Homenagens

“Glamour Girl”. This is the name of the contest that kick-started, though indirectly, the career of the woman who gave a face and personality to modern Brazilian cinema. Helena Ignez won the competition for most glamorous girl in the high society of the state of Bahia at the end of the 1950s. The money she made, from the contest on and through connections made during it, enabled the production of O Pátio, short film in which she starred and made the directorial debut of her then-partner, Glauber Rocha. The year was 1959 and marked the beginning of one of the most fruitful periods in our national cinema.

Helena Ignez was born in Bahia in 1939. She studied law and worked as a social columnist for a Salvador newspaper in her youth. However, she abandoned a future as a lawyer to study dramatic arts at UFBA (Federal University of Bahia).

As an actress, Ignez developed work that goes beyond what is usually understood as classical: her experimental style led her to create a particular acting method, in tune with the spirit of Brazilian culture of the 1960s and 1970s. Authorial and innovative, her acting has even been classified as sloppy, verbose, mocking and with no boundaries.

Out of this creation came gunwoman Janete Jane, from The Red Light Bandit (1968, 42nd Mostra), and nymphomaniac Angela Meat and Bone, from The Woman of Everyone (1969), a character marked by rebellion and iconic statements uttered while smoking a cigar. An example: "I`m just a 21st century woman. I arrived early, that’s why I`m faulty this way: the anti-Western devil." In these works, both directed by Rogério Sganzerla, Ignez goes beyond mere representation. She breaks with a realistic form of acting, as defined by critic Jean Claude-Bernardet during an interview to Itaú Cultural in 2012.

In Ignez`s filmography, these characters were preceded by her work in feature films that have also become Brazilian classics, such as The Priest and the Girl (1966, 30tth Mostra), by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, and Assault on the Pay Train (1962), by Roberto Farias. And they were followed by performances in films by Júlio Bressane and Rogério Sganzerla, her associates in the ephemeral production company Belair: Baron Olavo, the Horrible and Watch Out, Madame, by Bressane, and Copacabana Mon Amour and No Way, Spider, by Sganzerla —all titles produced in 1970.

The dissolution of Belair, months after its creation, coincides with persecution the trio was submitted to by agents of the military dictatorship. With the upsurge of the regime, Ignez and Sganzerla, her husband, went into exile in 1970. The couple returned to Brazil two years later, but lived discreetly: filming only resumed a little over a decade later, in the mid-1980s, with the decline of the regime.

Although she has always claimed space as co-creator of works and often taken on, in addition to her role as actress, the role of producer, Ignez`s debut as director came only in 2003, with medium-length film Reinvenção da Rua. Since then, she has directed many other works. Among them is the sequel to Sganzerla`s greatest classic, Light in Darkness: The Return of Red Light Bandit (2010, 34th Mostra), co-directed by Ícaro Martins. She also directed short film A Miss e o Dinossauro (2005), medium-length Poder dos Afetos (2013, 37th Mostra) and features Canção de Baal (2008, 32nd Mostra), Feio, Eu? (2013, 37th Mostra), Ralé: The Lower Depths (2015, 39th Mostra) and My Calendar Girl (2017, 41st Mostra).

Ignez rejects the label of “muse”, in relation to both Cinema Novo and Cinema Marginal —a stereotype that has so often been used to define her. In interviews, she has said the epithet, given by men, was meant to please, but was actually a way of silencing. “The image one has of muses is that they do nothing, they just inspire, they`re unbearable,” she once told Trip TV.

The filmmaker found a better definition in the title of the documentary about her life, directed in 2019 by daughter Sinai Sganzerla: The Woman with Her Own Light. And it is because of Helena Ignez’s radiance, determination and dare, present in all her works, and in praise of her prolific and exceptional career, that the 45th Mostra awards to the actress, director and producer from Bahia the Leon Cakoff Prize.

Paulo Rocha Restrospective

Few directors in the history of Portuguese cinema have been as decisive as Paulo Rocha. His trajectory and oeuvre are marked by a restless, unique and ever-changing view of his country and cinema.

Paulo Rocha was born in Porto, in 1935, after the return of his family to Portugal from Brazil. From a conservative family, he studied law, until he moved to Paris, where, in 1962, he joined the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques. In France, he engaged more deeply with film clubs, completed his studies as a director and worked as assistant director for Jean Renoir in The Elusive Corporal (1962).

Back in Portugal, he worked with Manoel de Oliveira in Act of Spring (1963). Soon after came his first feature, The Green Years (1963), considered the starting point of the New Portuguese Cinema, a movement that introduced new themes, aesthetics and ways of depicting the changes happening at the time. Along with names such as António Macedo, Fernando Lopes and António da Cunha Telles, Rocha is part of a generation of cinephile filmmakers influenced by the Nouvelle Vague that, in a typically modern gesture, does not see current cinema as a vehicle capable of dealing with our ever-changing world. 

Although more classical in its language, The Green Years observes in a totally new way a process of migration to big cities and the consequences of social tensions among young people in the face of unstoppable urbanization. Awarded at the Locarno Film Festival, Paulo Rocha`s debut is a landmark in Portuguese cinema, opening up new possibilities for looking at the country.

In his follow-up, Change of Life (1966), there’s a radical change in scenery in relation to his first film, portraying a community of fishermen that serves as background to realistically address, albeit also in an oblique way due to the Salazarist censorship, the Portuguese Colonial War.

Afterwards, Paulo Rocha made documentary shorts and assumed administrative positions at film co-op Centro Português de Cinema, until he moved to Japan, where he remained for 10 years and became cultural attaché. There, he made what is perhaps his most ambitious film, The Island of Love (1982), a sort of loose biopic, influenced by theater and painting, about the life of writer Wenceslau de Moraes. This time, if the theme seems more classical, the form is as radical as it is unusual, resulting in a unique film within Portuguese cinematography. His interest in the writer also led him to direct the A Ilha de Moraes (1984).

Back in his native country, he directed works such as O Desejado (1986), which deals with political and social issues concerning The Carnation Revolution, and TV experience Steel Mask Versus Blue Abyss (1989), a collage on Portuguese modernism, centered on painter Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso.

In 1993, he became president of Associação Portuguesa de Realizadores (Portuguese Association of Film Directors), and in the last two decades of his career directed titles such as River of Gold (1998), The Heart`s Root (2000) and Vanity (2004). His last feature, If I Were a Thief... I`d Steal (2012) serves as his will, beginning with memories of his family and movies to then revisit his origins in a complex and autobiographical construction.

Paulo Rocha left us in 2012, but his films continue to reveal themselves in their growing formal rigueur and unique view of Portugal. In partnership with Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema (Portuguese Cinematheque - Museum of Cinema), the 45th Mostra brings to Brazil seven of his most important works, thus offering an overview of this peculiar and instigating cinematographic trajectory.