Filmes
32nd São Paulo International Film Festival presents an Ingmar Bergman`s retrospective
The 32nd edition of the São Paulo International Film Festival, which will take place between October 17 and 30, will show a retrospective of films by the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, with rare works of the beginning of his career. The author will also be honored with a photo exhibit and the re-release of his autobiography.
Another filmmaker honored by the Mostra will be the Japanese Kihachi Okamoto (1924 – 2005), who will also have a restrospective. In addition to those, Mostra will bring to São Paulo some important characters of world cinema, such as the Argentinean filmmaker Pablo Trapero and the Portuguese actress, filmmaker and singer Maria de Medeiros, and there will also be a special screening of “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder`s greatest works.
Homage to Ingmar Bergman
In the year Ingmar Bergman would be 90 years old, Mostra honors the filmmaker with a retrospective that privileges rare films from the beginning of his career. Among the films in the selection there figure “Crisis” (1946), “Prison” (1949), “To Joy” (1950) and “Vargtimmen” (1968). The films will be shown in new 35 mm prints produced under the supervision of the Swedish Institute, the organ that spreads Swedish culture around the world.
Mostra will also present the exhibit “My Rendez-vous with Bergman”, a selection of pictures of the filmmaker behind the scenes of the shootings. The pictures, made between the 50`s and the 80`s, are by the Swedish Ove Wallin. The exhibit has already been in Stockholm and Tokyo.
The Mostra will also promote the re-release of “Lanterna Magica”, his autobiography, reedited by the Cosac Naify publishing house, translated directly from Swedish. The work was originally published in Brazil by Guanabara publisher in 1988 and is sold out.
Kihachi Okamoto Retrospective
Another filmmaker honored by the Mostra is the Japanese Kihachi Okamoto (1924 – 2005). The author will be remembered in a retrospective composed by 14 of his 39 titles. Kihachi Okamoto, one of the New Japanese Cinema pioneers, has been compared to Samuel Fuller, but remained little known outside Japan. However, the director has influenced western filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino (“Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2”) and Jim Jarmusch (“Ghost Dog”). Besides his remarkable chambara and gangster movies, Okamoto made important war movies.
Okamoto was born in 1924 in Tottori, Japan. In 1943, he started working as an assistant director to Toho studios, but was soon recruited for military services. At the age of 19, he was sent to the Pacific front in the Second World War. After war, he went back to the studios and was assistant director to Senkichi Taniguchi, Masachiro Makino and Mikio Naruse, among others. This generation of filmmakers would, in the 1960`s, re-think and transform the Japanese genre cinema.
Just like other filmmakers of his generation --Masaki Kobayashi (born in 1919), Kenji Misumi (born in 1921), Seijun Suzuki ( born in 1923), Yasuzo Masumura ( born in 1924)--, Okamoto was influenced by the Second World War, and his work is full of the themes of violence and conflicts.
His cinematography, though, crosses many styles. Okamoto made serious historical dramas, action movies and even comedies with musical touches. A great fan of John Ford, Okamoto inserted farwest elements in most of his films.
His comical stories, his breathtaking camera work and his fast editing got known as the “Kihachi touch”. Among the titles confirmed for the Mostra are his debut film, “All About Marriage” (1958), and important films of his career as “Desperado Outpost” (1959), “The Sword of Doom” (1966) , “Kill” (1968), “Oh, My Bomb!” (1964).
“Berlin Alexanderplatz”, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Mostra will have a special screening of “Berlin Alexanderplatz”, the 1980 series made for TV by the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It is the first time that the work, which is over 15 hours long, will be shown in 35 mm in Brazil – the series was shown in 16mm in the 9th Mostra, in 1985. The screening, that counts with the support of the Goethe Institut, will be divided in blocks of three episodes a night starting on October 25.
Workshop with Pablo Trapero
Pablo Trapero, the author of “Família Rodante” and one of the most important Argentinean filmmakers, is one of the guests of the 32nd São Paulo International Film Festival. The director will give a direction workshop at FAAP, just like the Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai and the Iranian Abbas Kiarostami have done in previous editions.
His most recent film, “Leonera”, which had its debut in Cannes this year, will be shown in the Festival. Actress Martina Gusmán, Trapero`s wife and main character of the film, will also come to São Paulo for the screenings of the feature film.
Closing concert with Maria de Medeiros
Portuguese actress, filmmaker and singer Maria de Medeiros will be the attraction, on October 30, the closing night of the Mostra. Medeiros, who was named on March 17 this year “UNESCO Artist for Peace”, will present in the SESC Pinheiros theater songs of her first album, “A Little More Blue”, in which she sings compositions by Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil. The album is a kind homage to Brazilian music and its resistance authors during the years of the military dictatorship.
During her teenage years, Maria de Medeiros learned to decode in the songs the resistance of Brazilian composers. In the album, Medeiros organizes in a new manner the sense of the interpreted songs, born in an environment of repression, political frustration and transformation desires.
Maria de Medeiros was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1965. An internationally renown actress, she has already played the fragile and insecure Bruce Willis` wife in “Pulp Fiction” (1994), by Quentin Tarantino; the emotive and transgressing writer Anaïs Nin in “Henry & June” (1990), by Phillip Kaufman; the crazy and alienated lover of a construction businessman in “Golden Balls” (1993), by Bigas Luna; among many other roles.
As a director, her first feature film was “Capitães de Abril”, which got the International Jury Award at the 24th São Paulo International Film Festival in 2000. In 2004, Mostra showed her second film, the documentary “Je t`aime... moi non plus: Artistes et critiques”, about the love-hate relationship between artists and critics. Medeiros directed one of the segments of “Welcome to São Paulo”, a collective feature film made in São Paulo by many international filmmakers invited by Leon Cakoff, the director of Mostra. The film was shown at the 28th Mostra and released in commercial circuit in 2007.
The Poster of the 32nd Mostra
This year, the artist Tomie Ohtake signs for the third time in the history of Mostra the festival`s poster and all the artworks used in the promotional material of the event. Tomie Ohtake is also the creator of the Bandeira Paulista trophy, with which the winning films are awarded.
Tomie Ohtake takes part in a gallery which contains posters by Hector Babenco, Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Manoel de Oliveira, Isabella Rossellini, Aleksandr Sokúrov, Abbas Kiarostami, Takeshi Kitano, Emir Kusturica, Angeli, Guto Lacaz, among others.
The awards
Faithful to its inclination to embrace cinematographic diversity and reveal new talents, Mostra, besides giving the audience a selection of the best cinema production in the world, also awards the best films.
The festival promotes the New Filmmakers Competition, in which take part filmmakers who have made at most their second feature film and whose film was concluded in the current year, with no screening to the Brazilian audience. The winners of the New Filmmakers Competition are granted with the Bandeira Paulista trophy, a creation by the artist Tomie Ohtake.
The festival also brings to the audience a panorama of the most important and representative production of world cinema in the two past years, which are shown in the International Perspective selection. The films in this slection run for the Audience Award in the categories: Best Foreing Feature and Best Brazilian Feature.
In a section dedicated to new languages and to artists that made films for cinema, television and internet, Mostra brings the selection Mostra Medium and Short, for short- and medium-length films. The films in this section will be evaluated by a specific jury and will run in the categories: Best Foreign Medium, Best Brazilian Medium, Best Foreign Short and Best Brazilian Short.
The Mostra History
Directed by Renata de Almeida and Leon Cakoff, the event is proud of its contribution to spread ideas and the promotion of cultural diversity in São Paulo and in the country.
The festival was created in 1977 by the movie critic Leon Cakoff to celebrate the 30 years of Masp - São Paulo Art Museum Assis Chateaubriand. During the seven years in which Mostra was organized by the Cinema Department of Masp, directed by Cakoff, many challenges of the censorship had to be overcome, as the country lived under the military dictatorship. Only in 1985, after a juridic battle struggled by Mostra, the festival was able to show its films without previous censorship. The measure that benefited Mostra, instituted by the Justice Ministry, was extended to the whole Brazilian territory and also benefited other movie festivals that had passively included the previous censorship to its regulations.
The first edition of the São Paulo International Film Festival presented 16 feature films and seven shorts (from 17 countries), had 40 sessions at the Big Auditory at Masp and started the audience vote, which was never abandoned. The winner of the Audience Award was then “Lúcio Flavio”, by Hector Babenco.
In its 31st edition, which happened between October 19 and November 1st, 2007, the São Paulo International Film Festival offered a selection composed by 370 features, 67 shorts and 24 medium-length films, in total 461 films from 77 countries and 1.181 sessions.
Sponsors
The 32nd São Paulo International Film Festival is a production by ABMIC – Associação Brasileira Mostra Internacional de Cinema, with the sponsorship of Petrobras; co-sponsorship by Adidas; support by FAAP, Vivo, Unibanco, iG, Cosac Naify, Hotel Renaissance, Telecine, Condomínio Conjunto Nacional; cultural support by SESC São Paulo, Culture Ministry and Incentive to Culture Law, Federal Government, Sabesp, São Paulo State Cultural Action Program, State Culture Secretariat, São Paulo State Government; institutional support by Imprensa Oficial, São Paulo Turismo, Culture Secretariat of the city of São Paulo; and promotion by Folha de S. Paulo, Globo Filmes and Rádio Eldorado AM.
Petrobras
Petrobras has supported the São Paulo International Film Festival since 2001 because it believes projects like this defend and value the formation of new audiences and the access to cultural goods. Petrobras has the commitment, in its sponsorship policy, to strengthen the actions of creation, production, diffusion and fruition of the arts in the country, a role that Mostra has played with intense effectiveness in Brazilian cinema.
Information for the press:
Margarida Oliveira: margom@uol.com.br
Marina Campos Mello: marina@mostra.org
Juliana Andrade: juliana@mostra.org
Phone number: + 55 11 3141.0413