Brazilian Film Festival

You don't need to fully grasp Brazilian culture in order to appreciate this annual event that recently came to town. It kicked off with a concert in Central Park featuring Maria Rita, one of the country's greatest divas, who is touring to promote her most recent release, Samba Meu (Warner Latina). The next day, the festival moved to The Tribeca Cinemas, where several independent films, ranging from shorts, documentaries and features from a few up-and-coming directors from Brazil.

Among the highlights was The House of Tom – Mundo, Monde, Mondo, a highly personal documentary about Antonio Carlos Jobim's life  from the late 70s to the time around his untimely passing in 1994. Directed by his widow Ana Jobim, it  shows intimate moments at his homes in Rio and New York as he makes music and tells funny anecdotes about the early bossa nova years and his friendship with Frank Sinatra. He also voices his concerns about climate change more than 20 years before Al Gore came along.

“The film is about the twenty years we lived together,” Ana Jobim told us via a phone interview from Rio de Janeiro. “In 1987, we released a book of my photos with text by Tom, and I had the idea of making an exhibit with the photos and some videos to create some movement in the show. With that in mind, I hired a crew and began to film, and later we wound up with more than 8 hours of material on tape.”

The screening of the film coincided with 50 year anniversary since a Bahian singer-guitarist called João Gilberto came up with an innovative form of playing and singing that would ultimately change the face of Brazilian music as it was then known. The film was screened at the United Nations in the presence of members of the press, sponsors and friends of Ana Jobim, who was on hand.

Other films featured were Bellini & The Devil, a horror thriller based on the book by the same name by musician-novelist Tony Bellotto in which detective Bellini (Fabio Assumpção) investigates mysterious deaths seemingly linked with a group of satanic worshippers. Whatever Happened to Dulce Veiga?, is a fictional story in which a journalist tries to locate a 1960s bossa singer who had vanished while making a feature film. Also notable was Not By Chance, a story in which two control freaks have to confront unpredictable things in the wake of a tragic accident that takes loved ones away from them.

This edition of the Brazilian Film Festival was superior compared to previous ones. Instead of pieces featuring unknown actors and directors, this time around they were all works that audiences could relate to. The production of the festival was impeccable – kudos to director Adriana Dutra, who has mastered the art of spreading the word about the evolution of Brazilian cinema throughout the years.

words by Ernest Barteldes