EDITORIAL - 38ª Mostra

THE COLORS OF ALMODÓVAR, THE COLORS OF SPAIN

The colors of Almodóvar arrive at this year’s São Paulo International Film Festival through our official artwork and the extensive retrospective we dedicate to the extraordinary work of Pedro Almodóvar.

Inside the Spanish Showcase, we will also have a contemporary cinema panorama and a tribute to a director with few titles in his filmography, but all of a unique beauty: Víctor Erice.

The Brazilian Cinematheque will hold the Mexico Photographed by Luis Buñuel photo exhibition, with location scouting and production stills taken by Buñuel in Mexico. To complement the exhibit, we will screen his films Un Chien Andalou and The Golden Age.

The Spanish Focus will also host a co-production meeting, in partnership with Ancine and Cinema do Brasil.

Almodóvar’s production company El Deseo also co-produced this edition’s opening night film, Wild Tales, an Argentine comedy directed by Damián Szifrón.

THE COLORS OF CHINA

In partnership with CosacNaify, Mostra will release the book O Mundo de Jia Zhangke, edited by Jean- Michel Frodon and Walter Salles. The idea for the project came in 2007, when Mostra held the first Jia Zhangke retrospective in Brazil. On that occasion, we invited Walter Salles, a great admirer of Jia, for a roundtable discussion with the director. During the last seven years, the impact of Jia Zhangke’s work only grew, making his films even more urgent and essential.

Mostra is also proud to release Walter Salles’ beautiful documentary on Jia Zhangke. With it, Walter Salles familiarizes the audience not only with Jia Zhangke, but also with the history of an entire country.

AND THE COLORS OF THE ENTIRE WORLD

Mostra also pays tribute to the director, producer, distributor and exhibitor Marin Karmitz. He brilliantly acted in all of these areas of the cinematographic productive chain, being responsible for the work of great directors, including Theo Angelopoulos, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Claude Chabrol and Abbas Kiarostami. His MK2, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2014, is a generous gateway to the diversity of cinema, as well as its guardian. For all of this, Marin Karmitz will receive the 38th Mostra’s Humanity Prize, during an edition where we will have the opportunity to follow a great retrospective of his work.

Noboru Nakamura was one of Japan’s most established filmmakers, but despite having directed more than 82 films, his work did not receive a lot of attention in Brazil. Mostra has the joy of screening three recently restored copies of his films: Home Sweet Home (1951), When It Rains, It Pours (1957) and The Shape of Night (1964).

As in every single year, we will screen the works of renowned filmmakers. Master Manoel de Oliveira will present us his last short film, The Old Man of Belem. Many well-known names by the festival’s audience will also show us with their latest work: Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Amos Gitai, Olivier Assayas, Laurent Cantet, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardene, Naomi Kawase, John Boorman, Bruno Dumont and many other auteurs we admire and with careers that we seek to follow.

We also continue to look at new filmmakers with the New Directors Competition, seeking to reveal new names and new cinematographic tendencies.

Aside from all of this, Mostra also aims to be a discussion spot on the filmmaking process, with many meetings and roundtables in our schedule.

This year, the closing night film will be Sand Dollars, directed by Laura Amélia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas. The star of the production, Geraldine Chaplin, will be present during the screening to add prestige to the occasion, as well as the festival’s awards night.

The already traditional outdoor screening at Ibirapuera Park will be a tribute Charles Chaplin’s The Tramp character, celebrating the 100th anniversary of his first appearance in 2014. We will screen The Circus (1925) and the 1914 short film where The Tramp made his debut, Kid Auto Races at Venice. This way, we close our lineup in black-and-white, but with all of the colors of the joy that Chaplin brings us.

Of course, this is all possible thanks to our sponsors, who we thank for making this Mostra a reality.

Renata de Almeida
Festival director

Sesc and the 38th Mostra

SESC’s policies are substantiated by cultural promotion and diffusion. Film screenings, film festivals and showcases, aside from improvement policies established for filmmakers and the public, are included in this context. New production and diffusion methods for contemporary works have been widening the possibility of circulating these manifestations, seeking to contemplate multiple voices and precedence while translating the minority’s anxieties to visibility.

However, the actions in this field go beyond the presentation of a wide panorama of what is being experimented, produced and diffused in the scope of audiovisual productions. In order for the formative works to strengthen, mediation strategies for different ways to reach a new public are adopted, either contributing to the development of criticism or subsiding the amplification of references for consumption and enjoyment of the cinematographic art.

In this context, the partnership with the São Paulo International Film Festival, since its first edition, is justified by various motives. First, by its screening characteristics, searching for a greater capillarity by increasing its circuit to a large number of venues. This policy has been reinforced by the festival’s itinerary, initiated in 2011. This year, a selected group of films from the line-up will tour through ten SESC locations through the countryside and the coastline of the state of São Paulo, as well as screenings that will take place in combined or outdoor venues, such as the ones planned for the Campo Limpo and Osasco locations, the latter hosting a drive-in screening.

Another aspect that finds convergence between institutional actions is the valorization of the history of cinema. This partnership has made possible to present important tributes to the legacy of filmmakers through personalized retrospectives striving to recover their stories and achievements, either by restoring damaged prints, formative actions, critical reflection or entertaining installations, or by the search of adequate processes for their screenings. This way, by facilitating the access of others who are interested in the cultural process that brought us to contemporary cinema, we live up to the commitment to democratize knowledge and information that are relevant to the theme.

At the end, and as a characteristic of the modern world, we think of “expanded cinema”, that is, in the interface of other artistic languages, formats and architectonic spaces. It consists of, for example, outdoor film going experiences, or even film concerts, featuring live music, as well as exhibitions and thematic installations, such as the Music & Cinema: The Marriage of the Century? exhibit at SESC Pinheiros, in compliance with the festival’s line-up and the film proposal developed by the institution. This immersion into the infinite possibilities of human expression allows the stimulation of mutual respect, the comprehension of the other and the enrichment of the civilization process.

The attention that SESC dedicates to the relationships between art and human development is associated with a cultural understanding and an opening to the construction of an independent citizenship, through the collating of subjective questions and the plurality of the world. The São Paulo International Film Festival, with a focus on audiovisual productions, helps reaffirm and quicken the diversity of the human experience.

Danilo Santos de Miranda
SESC São Paulo Regional Director

Sabesp and the 38th Mostra

A Companhia de Saneamento Básico do Estado de São Paulo – SABESP é a maior empresa de saneamento da América Latina e está entre as cinco maiores do mundo, beneficiando cerca de 27 milhões de pessoas. A empresa tem se empenhado em destinar incentivo fiscal para projetos culturais e esportivos, alinhados aos princípios de responsabilidade socioambiental, ao incentivo à cultura e ao bem-estar da comunidade. Por isso, patrocina diversos projetos nas áreas de literatura, artes plásticas, música, dança, teatro, circo, cinema e preservação de patrimônios culturais.

Hoje, é a empresa que mais investe em cinema no estado de São Paulo e uma das três maiores incentivadoras do setor em todo o país, possibilitando a realização de importantes filmes do nosso cinema. Em 2013, foram destinados R$ 14,2 milhões a projetos culturais – sendo R$ 6,9 milhões ao Programa de Fomento ao Cinema Paulista. Desde 2004, quando a companhia aderiu ao programa, mais de 150 filmes receberam patrocínio por meio da Lei do Audiovisual. A Sabesp foi umas das pioneiras no incentivo à produção de filmes com legendas e audiodescrição, adaptados para pessoas com deficiência visual e auditiva.

Além de financiar a arte brasileira em todas as suas vertentes, a companhia apoia e mantém desde 2010 uma sala de cinema de rua, umas das poucas restantes na cidade de São Paulo. O Cine Sabesp, como é conhecido, tem capacidade para receber 270 pessoas e apresenta diariamente uma programação diversificada.

Acreditamos que praticar responsabilidade socioambiental é respeitar a vida, nas suas mais variadas necessidades – entre elas, a cultura e suas mais diferentes formas de expressão.

FAAP and the 38th Mostra

For a 12th consecutive year, the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation – FAAP participates in the São Paulo International Film Festival. The presence of important filmmakers at the FAAP campus for lectures, debates and workshops solidifies this partnership in its most effective way. That is what not only allows for an exchange of experiences, but also for our students and teachers to have a direct and differentiated contact with eloquent directors and producers from the world filmmaking scene.

The FAAP Film Studies Program is one of the most important in Brazil. We have a considerable yearly production of short films present in most competitive festivals in Brazil and abroad. This year, one of our productions, Caio Ryuichi’s The Prince’s Heart, received two prizes (Best Art Direction and Best Screenplay) at the Gramado Film Festival, one of the most traditional in Brazil.

Our consistent presence in national and international festivals during the past few years does not leave any doubts regarding the quality of our output and our learning process. At the same time, it partially summarizes our performance outside the academic level. We frequently seek to strengthen this relationship between the market and academia, within this proposal lies the partnership we have built with Mostra.

Along the years, we have built a memorable history, impossible to summarize with just a few lines. We prefer to valorize our participation knowing that we are together in this winning trajectory of bringing alternative films and directors from many origins, not always appreciated by the mainstream, to Brazil and FAPP. Along with diversity, a notable characteristic of the festival is the presence of relevant names in filmmaking at FAAP, events that make a technical and cultural difference to our students.

We already have generations of former students fondly recalling the workshops presented by Abbas Kiarostami and Amos Gitai, as well as the lectures by Theo Angelopoulos, Claude Lelouch and Wim Wenders. They also remember how willing Gael García Bernal and Claudia Cardinale were in answering questions. Finally, these gathered experiences are evidence to our learning proposal, much beyond the classroom and other conventional methods. We aim to amplify our territory with partnerships that happen to be creative and innovative initiatives.

Antonio Bias Bueno Guillon
FAAP Director-President

ITAÚ UNIBANCO AND THE 38th MOSTRA

Itaú Unibanco has supported the São Paulo International Film Festival since 2012. With an understanding of how cultural access is one of the main foundations for the development of a critical and independent society, the group is part of the partnership established with the event, one of the main activities of the São Paulo cultural scene.

Traditionally, Mostra’s selection is screened at, among other locations in the capital of the state of São Paulo, Itaú Unibanco venues – the Espaço Itaú de Cinema theaters, present in five other Brazilian cities. As it has already happened during previous years, this 38th edition will feature outdoor screenings – backed by a live orchestra – at the Ibirapuera Auditorium. Aimed at a public who enjoys outdoor activities, these screenings usually attract a crowd of 15 thousand people.

Since 2011, the Auditorium is managed by Itaú Cultural – developing events in all of Brazil from their São Paulo headquarters. Aside from producing exhibitions, shows, film festivals, roundtables and other activities on the diverse areas of expression, free of charge, the institute plans and supports the production of artists and researchers through the Rumos program – and, reinforcing their mission in promoting access to culture, it engages in elaborating a vast online content, gathered at itaucultural.org.br.

To encourage culture is to change the world.

Itaú Unibanco

JIA ZHANGKE OR THE MEMORY OF PRESENT TIME

Sometimes, we doubt the perception that film might still be the place where we best understand the world around us. Where we are faced with its extreme complexity, with our failures, but also with what humanizes and possibly saves us.

Jia Zhangke’s films are like floats in a raging sea. They are luminous reference points one can follow in order to better understand our contradictions and, eventually, dream and survive. To a growing number of film lovers, Jia Zhangke has become the most important filmmaker of his time. This was the perception that united us, Leon Cakoff, Renata de Almeida, Jean Michel Frodon and I, when we thought of a book and a documentary on this young filmmaker from the Shanxi region, in the north of China.

For Jia, film is a form of registering a changing memory, the brutality of our daily lives, something that will no longer be. His films offer a portrait of common people, those that, as he himself puts it, are “not holders of power” in a world of accelerated destruction. His films are also a territory where an entire generation expresses the desires and anxieties of their time.

In his first feature film, Xiao Wu, the young protagonist returns to her hometown, Fenyang, to notice what no longer belongs to her. She is between two worlds, like the characters in Jia’s next film, Platform. The internal time of the characters does not conjugate with the vertiginous time of society. This asymmetrical and asynchronous relation is one of the predominant points of Jia’s films. At the same time, the deep knowledge of the filmed material bestows a rare delicacy to these characters who, without Jia Zhangke’s gaze, would be left to themselves.

If the conflicts of the young outsider thief in Xiao Wu or the members of the falling theatre troupe in Platform seem so unique, they also offer a panoramic view of Chinese society. Platform takes place between 1979 and 1989 – from the years following the Mao Tse-tung Cultural Revolution to the reforms brought by Deng Xiaoping. Xiao Wu happens during the 90s, where the secular constructions of Chinese cities begin to give make way for skyscrapers brought by the market economy. The World goes beyond that. Filmed at a theme park where the Eiffel Tower stands next to the Twin Towers and the Egyptian pyramids, the film witnesses the implosion of time and space in the globalization era. A Touch of Sin reveals how violence has become the reverse angle of a society where money has become liturgy.

What makes Jia Zhangke’s films so unique is his refusal to pinpoint what his characters go through in such extreme situations. There is no moralizing, pre-established vision, guiding the development of his films. On the contrary, there is a constant search for balance between what occurs in society and the filmmaker’s personal, singular vision.

If this happens, it’s due to the fact that his films are similar to a living body, feverishly incorporating the surrounding reality with great intelligence. When Jia Zhangke is making fiction, he rebels against these limits in this narrative way, searching to incorporate everything that the moment and the geography they are filmed in provide. Still Life registers the demolition of ancient towns that will make way for the Three Gorges Dam. Man, pressured by the logic that prioritizes market efficiency, resists. Here, documentary and fiction seem to complement each other. It is in the search for new forms to tell what seems essential to him that Jia has been building, still at a young age, a singular place in the history of cinema.

At the end of Still Life, we see a man walking between two buildings on a tightrope. That man in unstable balance, constantly confronted with something that seems larger than him, might be the meeting place for all of the characters in Jia Zhangke’s films. In moments like this, we notice how his films are made of a matter that transcends physical or human geography. His characters might come from a region of Shanxi, but the existential indignations of his films have no frontiers and concern all of us.

Walter Salles

A Tree and Its Many Branches

It is like an exuberant bush: a turbulence of the radiant international recognition of a great filmmaker, a narrative transformation of the gigantic convulsions of his country and continent, a contemporary reinvention of a language of cinema, the ludic and radical breakthrough of the opposition between narrative and documentary, a strategic collaboration with powerful authorities in order to not allow confinement within a margin, although comfortable and glorious. A main event of early 21st century world cinema, the work of Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke has a timespan of only 15 years, however, it is of exceptional richness and complexity.

At this point, it becomes necessary to have the look of another filmmaker, Walter Salles. There is a distance, one that separates Brazil from China, between two very different personal trajectories, along with proximity, the admiration of a filmmaker for another, and even affection – and that counts. But « so far so close », a formula for excellence in mise-en-scène, is not enough. It was necessary to have the look of a filmmaker in order to see the trajectory of a filmmaker more clearly. It was necessary to have an intelligence that came from within and a capacity in composition, with sound and image narrative, contact with the landscapes, the family, the collaborators and, of course, with Jia himself, in order to turn this dense bush into a well-designed tree, alive and potent.

Jia helped Salles, not only confined in his archives but also introducing people whom are close to him, contributing with words and time. He helped him by indicating the starting point: childhood, hometown and the geographical path, from the Cultural Revolution to savage capitalism. But it was Walter whom managed to create what is presented as if it were a great living organism, with strong and numerous roots, a solid and audacious stem, main branches, ramifications, leaves and fruits. At the streets of his childhood, with the usual company, the filmmaker friends and the faithful actors, at trains and restaurants, at camps and studios, in the setting of his films and at the locations in his real life, is the portrait of an artist whom designs another artist. This portrait is of a man unwritten in his world, conducted by questions that come from intimacy, but from which he managed to make inquiries that cover the brutal and fascinating rise of a contemporary empire, stories of a very precise « there » that resonate everywhere.

It was necessary to have the look of a filmmaker in order to make visible how this great tree named Jia Zhangke sprouts and develops, grown in Chinese territory and during Chinese history so that its images can impress the entire world.

Jean-Michel Frodon

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA

43ª MOSTRA INTERNACIONAL DE CINEMA