Brand Upon the Brain

Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin, honored with a retrospective at the 28th Mostra, lends his name to the protagonist of that which is more than just a movie; it is an audacious project. Filmed in black and white, the production has a version with a soundtrack and another version that is silent. Both will be shown at the 31st Mostra. The novelty is that the silent version comes in a luxurious package: music and sound design will be played live at the SESC Pinheiros, in a single performance. For the so-called foley live, the effects played in front of the audience, three artists who are members of the film team will move on the stage, moving a tank with water, creating sounds from a wide variety of objects, and even playing exotic instruments like the didgeridoo, a wind instrument from the Australian aborigines. The trio is accompanied by a castrato and, during the live performance of the soundtrack, a group of eleven musicians and a singer from the Tom Jobim Center, formed by students and professors. The American maestro David Hattner will be the conductor of the group. But there will also be an invited narrator. At the project’s exhibitions in the United States and in Europe, like at the Berlin presentation, the live performance enjoyed the presence of musicians like Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, the poet John Ashbery and actresses Cate Blanchett and Isabella Rossellini, responsible for the narration in the soundtrack version. In fact, Roberto Rossellini’s daughter is a constant collaborator of Maddin, who directed the short film My Dad is 100 Years Old, homage from Isabella to the filmmaker, which was shown at the 29th Mostra. In São Paulo, the narrator specially invited for the exhibition/performance of the silent version is journalist, presenter, actress and singer Marília Gabriela, who now adds this unique and noteworthy participation to her multimedia performance at the front of the show envisioned by Maddin. In the plot of Brand Upon the Brain, the young Guy Maddin is marked by his relationship with his overprotective and tyrannical mother and his scientist father, who works in the basement secretly. Guy spends his monotonous days on a mysterious island, accompanied by his adolescent sister. His friends are abandoned children who live in an orphanage. After his parents, who recently adopted some of them, began to find wounds on their children’s heads, the child detectives Wendy and Chance Hale arrive. Guy falls hard for Wendy, while his sister feels the same about Chance. Everything is kept well hidden from their mother. While the investigation moves forward, the kids are led to the darkest regions of revelation and oppression. The search veers dangerously out of control when Guy’s terrible family secrets are revealed.

CENTRO TOM JOBIM - The Tom Jobim Center is a cultural and educational center dedicated to the creation, production and propagation of classical and popular musical repertoires. It is managed by the Association of Friends of the Tom Jobim Center. It is a Social Organization of Culture linked to the State Secretary of Culture of the State Government of São Paulo. Presently, the Center is composed of the Free University of Music (known as the ULM, it is a reference center in the teaching of music at all levels, with 2.5 thousand regular students), professional musical groups (State Symphonic Jazz and Symphonic Band), musical groups composed of scholarship recipients (Symphonic Youth Orchestra of the state of São Paulo, State Symphonic Youth Band, Tom Jobim Youth Orchestra, State Symphonic Chorus), artistic and cultural events (International Winter Festival in Campos do Jordão, the Studio Opera project), the Nucleus of Early Music (the only permanent one in Brazil), twelve artistic groups composed of only students, the "Supertônica" program on Cultura Radio, and the Caetano de Campos Theater, in addition to a series of other activities throughout the state of São Paulo. In this way, the Tom Jobim Center offers a wide perspective to children and young people, who can find complete musical training with some of the best musicians in the country and the opportunity to study at an advanced level and receive professional training, initially at the teaching concerts and continuing in the ULM, in the youth groups and festivals, and with the possibility in the future to join the professional groups at the Tom Jobim Center.

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA