By Maria Lopez Conde, Senior Contributing Reporter
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – With the Catholic 2013 World Youth Day in July, again Rio has no shortage of international attention this month. Yet for those in São Paulo on either business or pleasure this month, here are some interesting events taking over the metropolis in July.
Promising to reunite over 15,000 web aficionados under one roof is São Paulo’s youPix Festival. Held in the heart of the Ibirapuera park on July 5th and 6th, youPIX gathers everything and anything web-related across six stages.
What began as a printed magazine to document the best of the Internet gave way to this successful festival. Now in its fourteenth edition, youPIX is considered Brazil’s largest Internet culture festival.
According to its website, youPIX is a “platform that celebrates, discusses and serves as a stage for Internet culture, giving a space and voice to those agents of that silent revolution that happens through our wires and has already changed innumerable aspects of culture, behavior, business and communication in the world.”
The main stage will receive this year’s international guest, Tobias Anderson, one of the founders of The Pirate Bay, a popular and controversial website that provides links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing.
Brazil-based executives for web giant Google and social media networks, Facebook and Twitter, will also be in attendance, among nearly 150 other speakers, giving lectures and answering questions on the changing digital landscape. Ibope, a Brazilian research company, will take the opportunity to reveal a never-before-seen survey about the behavior of youth online.
For the first time, the event will also have a YouTube Hub, a stage dedicated to discussing web videos. Other stages will focus on debates on online gaming culture, blogging as a profession and feminism.
What: youPIX Festival São Paulo 2013
When: July 5 – July 6, 2013
Where: Bienal 2nd floor, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo
Entrance: FREE
Fans of the seventh art will rejoice with the eighth edition of São Paulo’s Latin American Cinema Festival, held from July 11th – 18th. Showing films across six movie theaters all over the city, the festival offers a comprehensive view of the best films produced in the region this year.
Among the highlights are the full-length feature by renowned Cuban actor and director, Jorge Perugorría, “Amor Crônico,” a comedic take on singer Cucu Diamantes’ return to her native Cuba. The life and work of Gabriel Figueroa, widely recognized as Mexico’s most famous director of photography, who collaborated with the likes of Luis Buñuel and John Huston, is the subject of “Miradas Múltiplas – O Universo de Gabriel Figueroa” from Emílio Maillé.
What: 8th Latin American Cinema Festival in São Paulo
When: July 11 – July 18, 2013
Where: Locations all over São Paulo. Visit the festival’s website for more details.
Entrance: FREE
Located in the up-and-coming artsy neighborhood of Barra Funda, the Galeria Baró is one of São Paulo’s most important art galleries. Dedicated to promoting Latin American art, Baró is opening two exhibitions covering the work of two influential artists with prominent roles in the Latin American vanguard movement, the Mexican Felipe Ehrenberg and the Argentinian, Roberto Jacoby.
Both artists produce provocative pieces on political and social issues, as well as their countries’ national identities. Ehrenberg’s pieces often question bureaucracy, institutions and the history of his country through collages, photographs and installations.
What: Felipe Ehrenberg, Roberto Jacoby
When: July – August 2013
Where: Galeria Baró, Rua Barra Funda 216 – Santa Cecília, São Paulo
Entrance: FREE