VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS |Class Carnival| In the introduction to the screening of The Priest and the Girl (O Padre e a Moça, 1966) last week at NYU, Robert Stam pointed out an ambivalence, or perhaps even a contradiction, in how Joaquim Pedro de Andrade understood Oswald de Andrade’s concept of “anthropophagy” – the Modernist embrace […]
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The Priest and the Girl (O Padre e a Moça, 1966), Joaquim Pedro de Andrade
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS |The precision of uncertainty| There was a running joke among the Cinema Novo filmmakers that Joaquim Pedro de Andrade could never quite figure out what the 180-degree rule was all about. In classical Hollywood cinema and beyond, the 180-degree rule – also known as “the line” – is a basic convention to […]
“The Priest and the Girl” at NYU
Last year, Kino Lorber released the blu-ray boxset The Films of Joaquim Pedro de Andrade. The collection features the restored versions of every film made by the great Brazilian director better-known for the classic Macunaíma (1969), as well as an essay by me. On Wednesday, one of his very best films, The Priest and the Girl (1965), will be screened at […]
Rotterdam, Sundance, Berlinale
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS Two feature films I’m involved with are having their world premieres this week. If you’re going to one of the three festivals, please consider watching them. While you’re at it, make sure to take a look at the other many Brazilian titles playing in each of them in this especially rich year. […]
Two films by Adirley Queirós at the Museum of the Moving Image
The Museum of the Moving Image will be showing the two latest features by Adirley Queirós this Saturday, as part of Reverse Shot’s series on 15 rising auteurs. It’s hard to overstate the importance of Adirley Queirós in recent Brazilian cinema, and how generative his work can be for international audiences while keeping an unshakeable […]
Mrs. Fang (2017), Wang Bing
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS |The disheartened eye| Mrs. Fang carries the name of its protagonist as its title for more than one reason. The opening shots give away the most obvious of them: as we see the main character moving around her house, the film promptly announces itself as a portrait of her. However, after the […]
Nothing (Nada, 2017), Gabriel Martins
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS |A one and a one| The short films directed by Gabriel Martins show a multi-faceted pattern of confrontation and negotiation between the director’s gaze and the conventions of different genres and modes of practice: the essay film (the wonderful Amazing World Remix, 2014), the multiplot gangster film (The Inside, 2010, co-directed with […]
The Two Irenes (As Duas Irenes, 2017), Fabio Meira
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS Tonight there will be a screening of the excellent The Two Irenes, by Fabio Meira, at the Anthology Film Archives. The film screens at 7:15pm, as part of a series put together by Cinema Tropical, titled If You Can Screen it There: Premiering Contemporary Latin American Cinema. After the screening, I will be taking with director […]
Holy Tremor (Terremoto Santo, 2018), Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS | The artificial divine | One of the most striking set compositions in Holy Tremor – a short video by the Brazilian-German duo Barbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca recently featured in the program LGBTQ Brazil, curated by Ela Bittencourt for the Museum of the Moving Image – shows a landscape of […]
New article at Aniki
VERSÃO EM PORTUGUÊS The Portuguese journal Aniki – Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento has a new issue out with a special selection of articles about Brazilian cinema in the neoliberal age. Edited by Lúcia Nagib, Ramayana Lira de Sousa, and Alessandra Soares Brandão, Brazilian cinema in the neoliberal age covers specific topics concerning the […]