Wed 01 Jun, 20:00 – Brazilian Cinema Night, by Débora Butruce & Lila Foster

Brazilian culture can be expressed in many forms. With a selection of short films from distinct film archives and collections, the Brazilian Cinema Night celebrates the Brazilian film heritage and what makes Brazilian people unique. The program brings together documentaries from different times and regions presenting Brazilian music, dance, indigenous culture, art and the historical past. The event is curated by Débora Butruce and Lila Foster, with the support of Brazilian Association of Audiovisual Preservation (ABPA). After the screening, there will be drinks and music by DJ Gunn.R, specialized in Afrobeat.

Film curators
Débora Butruce is an audiovisual preservationist, cultural producer, film curator, and the current president of Brazilian Association of Audiovisual Preservation.

Lila Foster is a curator, film preservationist, and member of the Board of Directors of Brazilian Association of Audiovisual Preservation.

Films:
De um lado do Atlântico (On one side of the Atlantic, Milena Manfredini, 2021, 7’)
The short is the first of a series of films in which the filmmaker proposes a dialogue with her affective and artistic references. They are contact films in which the director casts imagery letters overboard in an attempt to blur geographic barriers, terrestrial finitude and temporality. This marine release is for fellow filmmaker Christopher Harris.

Cidadão Jatobá (Jatobá Citizen, Maria Luiza Aboim, 1987, 14’)
A group of young Indigenous of different ethnicities in the Xingu National Park learn to build the traditional canoe made from jatobá bark. Due to the limitations of the park, this type of canoe of quick design, which was mainly used for exploring the surroundings, is no longer used and only the oldest in the village still know how to build it.

Gafieira (Dance Hall, Gerson Tavares, 1972, 12’)
In 2014, the project “Recovering Gerson Tavares films” digitized and put back into circulation the short films of Rio de Janeiro filmmaker Gerson Tavares. Dance Hall was produced by the National Cinema Institute (INC) and records a Saturday night in the traditional Gafieira Elite dance hall, in Tiradentes Square, in Rio de Janeiro’s downtown area. Shot by Lauro Escorel, this short film provides a glimpse into a typical dance hall, many of which were already disappearing from the city.

Heitor dos Prazeres (Antônio Carlos da Fontoura, 1965, 14’)
Memories of the samba artist and painter Heitor dos Prazeres in his studio in Cidade Nova, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, portrayed in his sambas, paintings and memories. In the film, it is painting, the artist's lesser-known activity, that stands out, and it will be through it that we will get to know the world of the great Heitor dos Prazeres.

Brasil (Rogério Sganzerla, 1981, 13’)
The film presents the backstage of the recording of the album Brasil, by João Gilberto, from 1981, with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia in the studio. And we still have Dorival Caymmi, Ary Barroso, Grande Otelo and Eros Volúsia, in performances that are rarely recorded, and Orson Welles at the Rio Carnival, composing a visual framework that presents a unique image of the country.