São Paulo International Film Festival Features Celebrated Works, New Brazilian Films

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – For the first time in 44 editions, the São Paulo International Film Festival, one of the most awaited events by film lovers each year, will not be held in movie theaters. With 197 films from 71 countries, the event will have both online and drive-in format screenings (at the Memorial da América Latina courtyard and Sesc Parque Dom Pedro II), between October 22nd and November 4th.

Film screenings will be held on the Mostra Play streaming platform, at a cost of R$6 (US$1.20) per screening (tickets must be purchased at mostra.org), the technology of which is the same used at Toronto and Tribeca festivals and by the audiovisual market in Cannes. Despite being online, each session will be limited to viewings, so film lovers should schedule in order not to miss this opportunity.

The feature film exhibited at the opening of the Mostra – which occurred at 7:30 PM on October 22nd at Belas Artes in São Paulo- sets the tone for the reflections that the curator intends to raise in this pandemic year. ‘New Order’, by Mexican Michel Franco, who won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Festival, invites the viewer to a wedding party interrupted by a demonstration suggesting a political conflict in a dystopian Mexico. “It is a year of reflection. A year of mourning. And we will open [the Festival] with a powerful film. It’s a Mexican film that reflects things also present in Brazil,” said Renata de Almeida, the festival’s director.

The event brings the most recent crop of Brazilian cinema to the public, with about 30 films being screened and titles such as ‘Verlust by Ana Esmir Filho; ‘Untitled’ by Lúcia Murat; ‘Curral’ by Marcelo Brennand; and ‘Bird City’ by Matias Mariani.

Among the international highlights are ‘The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis’ (based on the book by Portuguese Nobel Prize winner José Saramago) by Portuguese João Botelho; ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’ by Burhan Qurbani; and the documentary ‘Swimming Out Til the Sea Turns Blue’ by Jia Zhang-Ke, which also signs the festival’s poster – the portrait of an incense lighter by Fenyang, the filmmaker’s hometown, in a ritual for the God of Literature. Below are other selected showings at the program:

There is no Evil, by Mohammad Rasoulof (Iran)

Winner of the Golden Bear at the last Berlin Festival, the feature film tells the story of four men who propose moral reflections on life and death. In the first minutes, viewers are invited to watch Heshmat (Ehsan Mirhosseini), a thoughtful and caring father and husband (although a chauvinist) and a model employee, though reluctant and displeased whenever he must go to work. Only then is his livelihood unveiled: Heshmat is responsible for executing imprisoned men sentenced to death. Aesthetically impeccable, with scenes that stand out for their naturalism in the portrayal of everyday life, the feature film slightly disappoints for an excess of moral didacticism, but does not fail to explore different nuances and genres.

Memory House, by João Paulo Miranda (Brazil)

João Paulo Miranda’s first feature film, Memory House, comes to the festival with the Cannes stamp, having been the only Brazilian title among 56 films selected in the last edition of the French festival, after the success of Bacurau and The Invisible Life in prior years. The film exposes the historical and structural wound of racism in Brazil, through the story of Cristóvão (played by Antônio Pitanga), a humble man who moves to a small town of Austrian colonization in the south of the country, to work in a dairy plant. After the buzz at international festivals, the work is the most quoted to attempt a spot in the 2021 Oscars for Brazil.

https://youtu.be/QKxnNSHZhLU

Kubrick by Kubrick, by Gregory Monro (France)

Parisian journalist and critic, Michel Ciment, was one of the few to overcome the reluctance of photographer and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick to grant interviews and, between 1975 and 1987, held a series of talks with the director about his creative process and the secrets of works such as The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The talks were published in book format and now, with the help of Gregory Monro’s thorough research of photos and archive scenes, it is reborn as one of the essential documentaries of the 44th São Paulo International Film Festival. It is a rare chance to hear the voice of one of the film all-time greats and his reflections on art, industry, and literary adaptations.

Mamá, mamá, mamá, by Sol Berruezo Pichon-Rivière (Argentina)

After her sister drowned in the house pool, little Cleo, 12 years old, dives into a maturing process, alongside her cousins, while her mother mourns. A melancholic but sweet portrait of female childhood and adolescence. Debutant director Sol Berruezo Pichon-Rivière, only 23 years old and with a whole team of women, manages to emulate different emotions throughout the film, which transits between childhood memories, the absence of the dead and the living, and the discovery of her own body.

https://youtu.be/qhizSQ9DZ3I

The Mud, by Helvécio Ratton (Brazil)

This surrealist fable with a dream (or nightmare) atmosphere tells the story of Manfredo (Eduardo Moreira), a common and mediocre man with no ambitions, who goes out with several women without committing himself emotionally and who does not make an effort in the insurance agency where he works, but captivates his boss, who is equally lethargic. When depressed, Manfredo decides to seek the help of a psychotherapist, and learns in the diagnosis that he has an internal mud, which soon takes over his whole life. The mud is a depiction of banality – marked by fixed plans and office fronts – told in a very original way in the context of Brazilian cinema.

Only Mortals, by Liu Ze (China)

An essay on the impermanence of things, Only Mortals follows Xian Tian, a 30-year-old woman who ends her relationship with a married man, quits her job and goes back to live with her parents to help care for her father, who has Alzheimer’s. A raw, poetic film that discusses the finite nature of the body, mind, and human relationships, Only Mortals distances itself from other works that deal with this subject -like Amour, by Michael Haneke- in the context that is presented: a contemporary China where the politics of the child is past, women are more sexually emancipated and more liberated from the central patriarchal figure. It is they who define the fate of the men around them.

Coronation, by Ai Weiwei (China)

The most important Chinese artist and celebrated communist dissident, Ai Weiwei narrates in Coronation the lockdown in Wuhan during the outbreak of Covid-19 in January this year, and examines the political spectrum of Chinese state control from the first to the last day of the lockdown in the city. The documentary records the state’s militarized and brutally efficient response to control the novel coronavirus and takes the viewer to the heart of the field hospitals (built in record time) and ICUs, showing the entire process of diagnosis and treatment. Patients and their families are interviewed and share their opinions of the pandemic, voicing anger and confusion over the restriction of their freedoms.

Son of Ox, by Haroldo Borges, Ermesto Molinero (Brazil)

João is 13 years old and lives in the backlands of Bahia, embittered by the rupture of his relationship with his father. At the threshold of adolescence, his dream is to escape from this place, where he feels he does not belong. When a small circus comes to town, he befriends the clown Sausicha, who encourages him to face his fears. However, his plan of escape will lead him to embark on an adventure that may cost him his innocence. Winner of the Audience Award at the 23rd Malaga Festival in Spain, Son of Ox brings reflections on the construction of masculinity and prejudice, while displaying the political, social and cultural transformations that mark the contemporary hinterland.

The Book of Pleasures, by Marcela Lordy (Brazil)

The Book of Pleasures, by Clarice Lispector, seemed an unadaptable work. The 1969 novel takes place almost entirely in the thought of its protagonist, Lóri, a teacher in her thirties who does not deepen her relationships until she meets Ulysses, an older philosophy teacher, who invites her to experience love and pledges to wait for her until she is ready. Director Marcela Lordy succeeded in translating all the nuances of feminine desire in the feature film, after almost a decade working on the project.

Source: El País