| October 7th |
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If you are trying to catch up on what has been happening during Festival do Rio you can find the daily news archived in the Festival Diary to the left. There is also a good selection of photos at Festival Photos as a reminder and “lembrança” of the festival and its activities.
Arturo Ripstein: FIPRESCI’s Latin American of the Year Prior to Tuesday’s screening of La Reina de la Noche (The Queen of the Night) at Espaço de Cinema 1 at 19.15, director Arturo Ripstein will be presented with the FIPRESCI award as “Latin American of the Year”. Ripstein is considered to be Mexico's most celebrated and respected contemporary filmmaker. La Reina de la Noche (The Queen of the Night) premiered in competition at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and is the imaginary biography of the popular Mexican singer Lucha Reyes who in 1929, following a medical condition with her throat, abandoned singing as a soprano and took up “rancheras.” Performing with Mariachi bands - male-only at the time - she created her own style and shunned social dictates. Spending her nights at parties and orgies, Lucha suffered failed relationships, homosexual affairs, and publicly acknowledged alcoholism. Her career slid into decline, and in 1944 she took her own life. Festival do Rio is also screening Ripstein’s El castillo de la pureza (Castle of Purity), which in 1972 won five Mexican Film Academy Awards, including best film. The film will screen on Wednesday at Estação Botafogo 3 at 12.15 and on Thursday at Centro Cultural da Caixa Economica at 17.00. On Thursday at 14.15 at Estação Botafogo 3 there will be the opportunity to see Profundo Carmesí (Deep Crimson), which in 1996 won Ripstein best film and best director at the Havana Film Festival. Born in Mexico City in 1945, Ripstein is the son of producer Alfredo Ripstein. Growing up on the sets of his father's films, he became interested in becoming a filmmaker at a very young age. He began his professional career at 19 as the (unbilled) assistant director to Luis Buñuel on El Ángel Exterminador (1962). The working relationship gave rise to a close personal friendship that continued until Buñuel's death. Ripstein made his directorial and screenwriting debut in 1965 with Tiempo De Morir (Time to Die). A story of murder and revenge, it explored many of the themes that the director would make the trademarks of his work in the coming years. The film's script was written by Carlos Fuentes and the Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez; Ripstein would subsequently collaborate with a number of other important Latin American writers, including Joss Emilio Pancheco (El Castillo De La Pureza (The Castle of Purity), 1974, and El Santo Oficio (Holy Office), 1974); José Donoso (El Lugar Sin Limites (Hell Has No Limits), 1977); Vincente Leñero (La Tía Alejandra (Aunt Alexandra), 1978); and Luis Spota (Cadena Perpetua (In For Life), 1978). During the 1970s Ripstein won increasing critical recognition for his films, particularly El Santo Oficio, which screened in competition at the 1974 Cannes Festival. At times, due to a lack of funding for his films, Ripstein turned to TV and made movies such as La Ilegal (The Illegal Woman) which starred one of Mexico's biggest starlets at the time, Lucia Méndez. After directing Imperio De La Fortuna (The Realm of Fortune) in 1987, which was based on a text by Juan Rolfo, he began working with his wife Paz Alicia Garciadiego, a partnership that has produced some of Ripstein's most celebrated films. One of the films to come out of the collaboration was Principio y Fin (The Beginning and the End, 1994), which was based on the novel by Nobel Prize-winning Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz. The film won the San Sebastian Film Festival's Gold Shell award and that same year, Ripstein's La Reina De La Noche (The Queen of the Night, 1994) was shown in competition at Cannes. Profundo Carmesí (Deep Crimson, 1996), is perhaps Ripstein's most celebrated work and is based upon the real-life "Lonely Hearts Murders" that took place in Mexico during the late 1940s. The film won a number of awards at the Venice Film Festival and earned a Special Mention at that year's Sundance Festival and won Ripstein best film and best director at the Havana Film Festival. In 1997 Ripstein was awarded the National Prize for the Arts in Mexico, becoming the only filmmaker aside from Buñuel to have received this honour. That same year he began working on a new film, El Evangelio De Las Maravillas (Divine), 1998) based on events that took place in Mexico during the 1970s, it was a comedy-drama about a religious cult. The film screened in competition in Cannes. The following year, 1998, Ripstein's El Coronel No Tiene Quien Le Escriba (No One Writes to the Colonel), also screened in competition at the festival.
Première Brasil: A Potentially Popular Romance Guel Arraes’ latest film, Romance, will screen Tuesday at Palacio 1 at 20.15. Romance tells the love story of a couple of actors who live in São Paulo. Ana and Pedro perform The Romance of Tristan and Isolda adapted for the stage. The love scenes and the arguments on passion are the background for their relationship. The romance between the two works well until the arrival of Danilo, a TV producer, who invites Ana to perform in a soap opera. The actress' success is inevitable, unleashing Pedro's jealousy and his inability to grasp the reality of the situation. Starring Letícia Sabatella, Wagner Moura, Vladimir Brichta, Andréia Beltrão, José Wilker, and Marco Nanini, with music from Caetano Veloso, Romance is expected to be a major box-office hit when it is released in Brazil through Walt Disney on 31 October. Its director, Guel Arraes, has created some of the most famous Brazilian TV shows, O Auto da Compadecida among them, later released in the cinema with equal success. In 2000 he directed another TV show called A Invenção do Brasil (The Invention of Brazil), also released in cinemas with the title of Caramuru - A Invenção do Brasil (Caramuru - The Invention of Brazil). Two years later he made his third film, Lisbela e o Prisioneiro, one of the biggest blockbusters in Brazilian box office history, selling over 3.2 million admissions in Brazil alone.
Première Latina: A Spot of Bother Federico Veiroj’s Acne, which premiered in Directors’ Fortnight at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, will be introduced Tuesday at Espaço de Cinema 1 at 21.45 by its executive producer and editor Fernando Epstein. Epstein also executive produced and edited Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool that is screening at Festival do Rio. Acne is the story of Rafael Bregman, a shy young man who loses his virginity in a brothel. Even after having sex, he is driven to do something else: kiss a girl. His first choice is Nicole, for whom he is smitten. Rafael’s life is no piece of cake: he is handling his parents’ divorce, boredom at school, his daily responsibilities, and worst of all, the pimples that invade his face. To win the girl of his dreams, Rafael must tackle and transcend all these problems. Director Federico Veiroj was born in Uruguay in 1976. In 2000 he graduated in social communication from the Catholic University of Montevideo. Since 1996 he has been directing shorts, including As Follows (2004), which screened at the Rotterdam, Toronto, and Clermont-Ferrand festivals, among others. He has acted in many Uruguayan shorts and was script supervisor for the films 24 Watts (2001) and Whisky (2004). This is his first feature.
Première Brasil: Brazil’s Beloved Actor Gracindo Junior’s documentary Paulo Gracindo - O Bem Amado (Paulo Gracindo - The Well Beloved) will screen Tuesday at the Odeon Petrobras at 22.30. Paulo Gracindo was one of the most popular actors in Brazil. His life story spans the rapid development of Brazilian media communication. The documentary features testimonials from friends and coworkers and contains a wealth of archive footage that traces the career of this beloved actor and the Brazilian film and TV industries. Among those interviewed from both sides of the camera are Arnaldo Jabor, Bibi Ferreira, Claudio Cavalcanti, Daniel Filho, Dorival Caymmi, Eva Wilma, Fernanda Montenegro, Françoise Forton, Ginaldo De Souza, José Wilker, Lima Duarte, Mauro Alencar, Max Nunes, Milton Gonçalves, Paulo José, Paulinho Da Viola, Robert Carlos and Rogerio Froes. Gracindo Junior, Paulo’s son, is an actor, producer, and director for television and stage. This is his first film.
Panorama: Transsiberian Crossing Brad Anderson’s latest film, Transsiberian, which stars Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer, Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega, will screen Tuesday at the Odeon Petrobras at 19.30. Anderson is a hot property in the US having directed episodes of the award winning TV series The Wire and The Shield. Born in 1964, Anderson graduated in visual anthropology from Bowdoin College in Maine. His first film, The Darien Gap (1996), was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. In 1998 he was awarded Best Film for Next Stop Wonderland at the Deauville American Film Festival and in 2004 he won the Silver Meliès at the Sitges Film Festival for The Machinist. Transsiberian is the story of an American couple, Roy and Jessie, who travel to Moscow on the famous Transsiberian Express. But things have changed: the train’s shine has waned and it now runs the drug traffic route. They are delighted to meet another nice and normal couple, Carlos and Abby. When Roy misses the call to reboard the train and Jessie decides to wait for him, their new friends keep her company. However, Carlos harasses Jessie, and she kills him by accident. A police inspector enters the scene and reveals Carlos’ identity, transforming the couple’s holiday trip into a major adventure.
Peter Anderson Adds Not Just Another Dimension But Also a Workshop Peter Anderson, the director of 3-D photography on Catherine Owens and Mark Pellington’s film U2 3D, has kindly offered to hold a special one hour workshop for Brazilian film students at 14.00 on Tuesday at Centro Cultural da Ação da Cidadania. On Monday night Anderson introduced the screening of U2 3D at the Palacio 1. U2 3D is a concert film of Irish rock band U2, featuring footage from the band's 2006 Vertigo Tour. The band’s art director, Catherine Owens, made her film directorial debut, with the help of co-director Mark Pellington, to create the first live-action film shot, produced, and screened exclusively with both 3D and digital cinema technology. Footage from nine concerts, including those in São Paulo, Mexico City, Santiago and Buenos Aires, were shot to make U2 3D, using as many as 18 cameras at a time, that were edited together to create the 85 minute film that features a 14-song performance.
Première Brasil / Frontiers: Will This Man Will Die? Emilio Gallo’s Esse homem vai morrer - um faroeste caboclo (This Man will Die) will screen Tuesday at Odeon Petrobras at 17.30. The film is an investigative documentary intended to show how a dream that attracted a handful of Brazilians to the city of Rio Maria, in the state of Pará, turns into a trial, with fourteen people “marked” for death. Gallo is a documentarist and journalist. He has worked for Rede Globo in Brazil and several other countries. He directed and produced several short, medium, and feature-length films.
UK Focus: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas Mark Herman’s critically acclaimed box office hit, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, will screen Tuesday as part of the UK Focus at Espaço de Cinema 3 at 14.30 and 23.30 and on Wednesday at Estação Vivo Gavea at 15.30 and 19.50. Based on the book of the same name by John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is set in Germany in 1940. Bruno is eight years old and lives with his family in Berlin. When his Nazi officer father is promoted, he is forced to leave his friends and move to an out of the way region with nothing to do. One day, ignoring his mother’s orders, the boy approaches a mysterious fenced-in area where everyone is wearing striped clothes. He meets Shmuel, a boy his own age who lives on the other side of the fence. They forge a forbidden friendship that introduces Bruno to the adults’ horrible world. Born in 1954 in England, Herman graduated in animation from the National Film School and studied film at Leeds Polytechnic. In 1992 he directed his first feature, Blame It On the Bellboy. Among his films Brassed Off was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Screenplay and won the César for Best Foreign Film, while in 1998 Little Voice won a Golden Globe for Best Actor for Michael Caine’s performance.
Festival Short Cuts…
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