SESSION 1
26 Jun • 9.30 PM, ALCÂNTARA MARITIME STATION

Green Vinyl
Kleber Mendonça Filho • 2004 •  BRAZIL • 17’ • 35MM •  COLOUR • PRODUCTION CinemaScópio, Símio Filmes

Children and Films
“Based on a Russian folk story, Green Vinyl
is narrated as a fairy tale. From more direct references, such as the expression “Once upon a time” in the opening, to the photographs used in the same way as illustrations in children’s books, to the triple repetition of the facts – in fairy tales, in general, the facts are repeated three times before the ending, with distinct consequences –, and to the main character’s ordeal. Rather common in these stories from the oral tradition, the misfortunes experienced by the main character aimed at scaring, and in this way educating. And that is the great irony in Kleber’s short: rebel as a child, the Daughter grows up to become Mother, thus inheriting all of her fears and distresses.”

Beatriz Saldanha
in Cinequanon, 2/2013
http://www.cinequanon.art.br/grandeangular_detalhe.php?id=99

From the Window of My Room
Cao Guimarães • 2004 • BRASIL / BRAZIL • 5’ • SUPER 8MM • COR / COLOUR • PRODUCTION Cinco em Ponto

“Two bodies grab each other in the rain, both fighting and playing. They hold each other, push each other, let go of each other and grab each other again, in a sexy and aggressive choreography destitute of a clear style. Naked back, shorts, bare feet in the soaked dirt, the images highlight the dark skin of the two main characters. One is taller and slim, the other one can be a girl from Maria Chiquinha – it is not clear. There isn’t much more in frame.”

Esther Hamburger
in Significação Revista de Cultura Audiovisual, 2008, Vol. 35, nº 30, 167-174

Elena
Petra Costa • 2012 • BRAZIL • 82’ HD • COLOUR • PRODUCTION Busca Vida Filmes

Welcome, Elena
“Petra Costa, who is also the film’s narrator, is searching for her sister. She travels to New York hoping to find her. She goes through the city, and finds the friend who she last spoke with. At the same time, she turns to the videos she recorded, the letters she sent to the family in cassettes when she lived by herself in the United States. Even knowing she won’t answer her, she starts to do a voice-over addressing Elena. It’s the way she comes up with to talk to her. This search challenges interdictions apparently deter­mined out of fear that she might do the same as Elena – she could not move to New York, nor be an actress. They wanted her to forget her sister. And Petra admits that walking the streets hearing Elena’s voice she is starting to “get lost” in her. But not only does she escape such fatality, she ends up conquering the tacit consent of her mother, who collaborates in the search and has an outstanding presence in the film.”

Eduardo Escorel
in Revista Piauí, 6/5/2013
http://revistapiaui.estadao.com.br/blogs/questoes-cinematograficas/geral/seja-bem-vinda-elena
SESSION 2
27 Jun • 9.30 PM, ALCÂNTARA MARITIME STATION

The White Sheet
Juliana Rojas, Marco Dutra • 2004 •  BRAZIL • 16’ • 35MM • COLOUR • PRODUCTION Universidade de São Paulo

Seven Shorts by Juliana Rojas and Marco Dutra
“Now this is a respectable work. The two directors seem to already master the film grammar by telling the story of a young woman, who after a trance saw that her newborn daughter was dead. The emphasis on the dead girl waiting for the coroner on the couch and under a white bed sheet is quite bothersome. And already since the beginning of The White Sheet (2004), when the main character tries to breastfeed the child, there’s this feeling of a foreign body.”

Ailton Monteiro
in Diário de um Cinéfilo, 26/03/14
http://cinediario.blogspot.pt/2014/03/sete-curtas-de-juliana-rojas-e-marco.html
Necropolis Symphony
Juliana Rojas • 2014 • BRAZIL • 85’ • HD • COLOUR • PRODUÇÃO / PRODUCTION Avoa Filmes

On singing and dying
“The impurity of Necropolis Symphony (to stick to André Bazin’s defence of mixed languages and forms from other arts within the mechanics of film) goes further, because essentially it is a musical – or prior to that punctuated by the continued and occasional use of music replacing some of the dialogues between characters. Rojas balances the
singing’s reverie with the concreteness of the film’s spatial reality by always bringing the songs about based on visible elements – the gravediggers’ shovel and bricks, the coffins room, the raindrops in the car’s windshield, the mysterious noises of a night at the cemetery, a dead man’s bones in an advanced state of decay.”

Marcelo Miranda
in Revista Cinética, 26/7/2014
http://revistacinetica.com.br/home/sinfonia-da-necro­pole-2014-de-juliana-rojas/
SESSION 3
28 Jun • 9.30 PM, ALCÂNTARA MARITIME STATION

Ghosts
André Novais • 2010 • BRAZIL • 12’ HD • COLOUR • PRODUCTION Filmes de Plástico

III Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife: a Festival for Grown-ups
“A most curious film, it shows us a filling station and its surroundings, complemented by a discussion between two boys (who are never shown). It doesn’t take much to realise it’s a camera (even before the dialogue confirms the suspicion), and the outcome is striking, inventive and somewhat absurd (and yet likely): see to forget (it you didn’t get it, watch the film; I didn’t go into more detail, so as not to spoil a possible surprise).”

Alberto Bezerra de Abreu
in Miradouro Cinematográfico, 11/2/2011
http://miradourocinematografico.blogspot.pt/2011/02/iii-janela-internacional-de-cinema-do.html

Hood Movie: is the City one only?
Adirley Queirós • 2014 • BRAZIL • 73’ • HD • COLOUR • PRODUCTION Cinco da Norte

A Film seldom seen
“But there’s no need to complicate matters: what’s really striking about Hood Movie: is the City one only? is the ease with which the film turns away from the initial narrative trick, to reach an absolute simplicity in the dialogue it establishes with the spectator – a relation that above all reinforces the remarkable authenticity of its characters and of the situations recorded. The core group around Nancy, a woman who, as a child, was part of the choir that sang the campaign’s theme song, is always interesting, but it is difficult to deny that the major strength of Hood Movie: is the City one only? lays in the story of Dildu, the worker from Ceilândia tired of the politicians’ disregard for the people, who even without financial resources decides to invest in an election campaign to become district representative for Brasília – through the fictitious National Rush Party (PCN).”

Daniel Dalpizzolo
in Cineplayers, 13/2/2012
http://www.cineplayers.com/critica/a-cidade-e-uma-so/2354