City gears up for 5-day ‘Brazilian Film Festival’ from July 3
Kolkata: With the number of soccer fans in Kolkata who support Brazil amounting to lakhs, the city is now gearing up to welcome a five-day Brazilian Film Festival that will screen five award-winning critically acclaimed films from this Latin American country.
The event is being organised by Forum for Film Studies and Allied Arts (FFSAA) in collaboration with the Embassy of Brazil in India and Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI). The festival will be inaugurated on July 03 and will continue till July 07 at the SRFTI main auditorium.
Brazilian cinema is known to have drawn most of its elements from its history. The Cinema Novo movement ushered in a new age in the history of cinema in this Latin American country and offered a close look at its society. Some of the noted auteurs from the country include Joaquim Pedro, Ruy Guerra, Glauber Rocha, and Carlos Diegues, among others.
The festival will kick off with the film ‘Cazuza: O Tempo Não Pára (Cazuza: Time Doesn’t Stop) by Sandra Werneck and Walter Caravalho. The film, earlier screened at film festivals in Sao Paolo, Miami, among others and had bagged 23 awards.
On the second day, the film Ensaio Sobre a Cegue (Blindness) by Fernando Meirelles will be screened. It was earlier screened at Cannes and other film festivals. It won about 20 awards. The story begins when a plague of blindness strikes and threatens all of humanity including an eye doctor who awakens one morning to find that he suffers from the unexplained disorder. He, along with other victims, is sent to a government detention centre to quarantine the illness. Their time in the centre grows increasingly desperate as food and supplies dwindle and a citizen exercises dictatorial control over the others after he acquires a weapon.
Since football is an inherent part of Brazil, the film ‘O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias’ (The year my parent went on vacation) by Cao Hamburguer, talks about a 12-year-old boy from Minas Gerais who loves soccer but one day his life changes completely when his parents were forced to flee to save themselves from persecution by the dictator. While awaiting a phone call from his parents, Mauro deals with his new reality as he follows the performance of the Brazilian national team in the World Cup. The other two films are Mutum by Sandra Kogut and ‘Meu tio matou um cara’ (My Uncle Killed a Guy) by Jorge Furtado.
