What I love most about international film festivals is the opportunity to discover rare gems and stimulating foreign indie flicks, which may otherwise get lost in the mainstream blockbuster shuffle. One of this year’s contenders is a compelling Brazilian slave drama, set in the isolated backlands of this lush country, in the early 19th century during its painfully colonial times. Vazante is tragic story of slave trader Antonio, who in the event of losing his wife in child labor marries his late wife’s 12-year-old niece.
While waiting for his child wife to mature and irritated by a lack of diamond production in the Diamante Mountains, Antonio is advised by one of his foremen to cultivate and farm his vast rugged land with his captive slaves. Isolation, fear, violence, betrayal and prejudice are all at the premise of this beautifully shot black and white film, with minimal dialogue and score.
While waiting for his child wife to mature and irritated by a lack of diamond production in the Diamante Mountains, Antonio is advised by one of his foremen to cultivate and farm his vast rugged land with his captive slaves. Isolation, fear, violence, betrayal and prejudice are all at the premise of this beautifully shot black and white film, with minimal dialogue and score.
- 2/19/2017
- by Jenny Karakaya
- LRMonline.com
2. For Paulo Rocha
Weekend 2 - Day 1 - December 13th, 2013
The second Harvard-Gulbenkian program centers around a vitally important yet still under appreciated figure of the post-WW2 Portuguese cinema, the late Paulo Rocha whose influential masterpiece of poetic neo-realism, Mudar de vida (1966) is offered both in tribute to his recent passing and as an occasion to reconsider Rocha's cinema and legacy. Looking beyond the historic "Cinema Novo" movement with which this film and Rocha himself are most closely associated, Mudar de vida is placed here within a broader, alternate context: in dialogue with the films and presence of Víctor Gaviria and Billy Woodberry, two directors inspired, like Rocha, to renew the promise of a truly "popular cinema" intimate with the stories, experiences and landscapes of the people depicted and ultimately empowered by their films. Unseen in Portugal, the films of Gaviria and Woodberry offer revelational compliments to Rocha's lyrical realism, each...
Weekend 2 - Day 1 - December 13th, 2013
The second Harvard-Gulbenkian program centers around a vitally important yet still under appreciated figure of the post-WW2 Portuguese cinema, the late Paulo Rocha whose influential masterpiece of poetic neo-realism, Mudar de vida (1966) is offered both in tribute to his recent passing and as an occasion to reconsider Rocha's cinema and legacy. Looking beyond the historic "Cinema Novo" movement with which this film and Rocha himself are most closely associated, Mudar de vida is placed here within a broader, alternate context: in dialogue with the films and presence of Víctor Gaviria and Billy Woodberry, two directors inspired, like Rocha, to renew the promise of a truly "popular cinema" intimate with the stories, experiences and landscapes of the people depicted and ultimately empowered by their films. Unseen in Portugal, the films of Gaviria and Woodberry offer revelational compliments to Rocha's lyrical realism, each...
- 4/10/2014
- by Cinema Dialogues: Harvard at the Gulbenkian
- MUBI
"From Vidas Secas to Central Station, Brazil's northeast has long held a cinematic place as a sweltering netherworld of struggle, madness, and stark landscapes," writes Fernando F Croce in Slant. "It's an area that holds particular interest to writer-directors Karim Aïnouz and Marcelo Gomes, who have examined its rapport with characters in previous features (Love for Sale and Cinema, Aspirins and Vultures, respectively) and who team up for a far more experimental take in I Travel Because I Have To, I Come Back Because I Love You."...
- 3/26/2011
- MUBI
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