Cannes: Without competing for the Palme d’Or, Brazil is present in parallel shows

This Tuesday (17th) the most important and most glamorous festival in the world begins, and Brazil will be there, but without competing for the main prize: the Palme d’Or.

The last time we were on the gold list was in 2019, with the film “Bacurau“, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. We didn’t take this one, but we took another; the Jury Prize. In fact, the only time Brazil won the Palme d’Or was in the distant year of 1968, with “O Pagador de Promessas”.

Since then, Brazilian cinema has changed, but the procedures in relation to the sector not so much. For Lucia Monteiro, researcher and film teacher, there is no lack of will and creativity on the part of filmmakers, but investment is still scarce, even more so after a pandemic.

“Brazilian audiovisual moves a lot of people, what there is not is a constant public policy that transfers resources to our cinema”, she says. “The main ‘via crucis’ is that of the independent filmmaker, who is precisely the one who has more space in festivals like Cannes”.

We may not be on the Festival’s gold list this year, but some Brazilian representatives have managed to go through this turbulent path. Many are behind the cameras of foreign films and are representing the country in other Cannes shows.

The backstage of the time is on account of Rodrigo Teixeira. Producer of films such as “Frances Ha” (2012), “Tim Maia” (2014) and “Call Me By Your Name” (2017), Rodrigo brings to Cannes the film “Armageddon Time”, directed by James Gray, with whom he has already worked on “Ad Astra” (2019).

For him, the market is as heated as it was before the pandemic, but the lack of transfer to the cultural sector makes the Brazilian audiovisual not keep up with the international.

“In 2019, our cinema experienced one of the most prestigious years, but there was a very large drop in investment by the government, followed by a pandemic”, he says. “Now, with streaming platforms, the market is moving a lot, even more than before 2020.”

For Rodrigo, the filmmaker needs to find himself in the medium that offers, at this moment, opportunities for both film and series production. “You will have the most popular and the most sophisticated product. What the filmmaker needs to do is dialogue with the services, with the platforms, and try to sell the best product possible”.

International market

And sales are now open. In parallel to the Cannes Festival, since 1959, the Marché du Film has been held, an event entirely dedicated to negotiations in the audiovisual sector. They are producers talking to distributors, streaming services and any company that wants to acquire the films entered in the Festival.

One of them is “Coração de Neon”, directed by Lucas Estevan Soares, and scheduled to arrive in Brazil in 2023. Filmed in the neighborhood of Boqueirão, in Curitiba, the feature is the first production of Brazilian cinema to be finished with sound technology. immersive Dolby Atmos 9.1., which arrives from all sides of the cinema, putting the viewer in a kind of “bubble”. For Lucas, this technology, combined with a good story, manages to raise the expectations of negotiations for the film.

“No matter how much the competition goes on, no matter how much we see all the glamor of the Festival, things happen at the Marché”, he says. “We’ll be showing our film in a session to buyers around the world, so we’ll be talking to everyone there and showing our goal.”

The application for Cannes came naturally; just a team of filmmakers wanting to show their work to the world, according to Lucas. The invitation came because of the possibility of having the producer’s own stand in the Marché.

“It is very gratifying to have this project, which started there in 2018, filmed completely independently, being shown to the world”, he says.

On the other side of the Festival, there are negotiations for the “Short Film Corner”, the great market for short films in Cannes. There will be dancer Thiago Soares, actress Lana Rhodes and filmmaker Oskar Metsavaht with “Vermelho Quimera”, based on the ballet “O Pássaro de Fogo”.

Without dialogue, the story is told through a choreography performed by two lovers and is the first Brazilian dance film to be taken to the Festival.

“We made the film in a very domestic way”, says Thiago Soares, who is responsible for the choreography and co-direction of the short. “The stages were closed, no events were happening, I called Lana and Oskar and we recorded in my studio in Rio de Janeiro, during the pandemic”.

Thiago said that as soon as Oskar saw the material, he saw great potential in it. When the work was finished, the team screened the short to some critics and the responses were very positive.

“It’s one thing for us to think our project is amazing, it’s another thing to hear from someone who knows how to evaluate the short. There are already producers interested in our work, so we’ll be there. Talking to everyone and having breakfast at the ‘Short Film Corner’”, he says.

political weight

Ten months ago, filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho participated in the jury of the 2021 Cannes Festival. At the opening of the event, he made a speech criticizing the handling of the pandemic by the government of Jair Bolsonaro and made an appeal for the Cinemateca Brasileira, which, at that moment, it was closed.

“We are at the Cannes Film Festival and we all love cinema here. And I think that Cinetameca is a temple of memory and preservation. So, some of my non-Brazilian friends asked: ‘what can we do?’” Kleber said at the time, “and I say: talk about it, discuss it, write about it. Maybe call someone in government and ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

On May 13, the Cinemateca Brasileira reopened in São Paulo. The institution keeps the largest collection of films in South America and is responsible for the restoration of several old documents. One of the films stored there will be in Cannes, restored.

“Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol”, directed by Glauber Rocha, will be screened at the “Cannes Classics” exhibition, in 4k, 58 years after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival itself. The project was headed by the filmmaker’s daughter, Paloma Rocha, and producer Lino Meireles.

“The restoration process was very uncertain because of the pandemic and because of the closing of the Cinemateca, we got the negative, the images, but not the sound”, says Lino.

The sound file had been trapped inside the Cinematheque. Paloma Rocha then intervened with the Special Secretariat for Culture and managed to recover the original sound of the film.

“Everyone says that Glauber was hermetic… that’s because they couldn’t hear ‘God and the Devil’ properly”, laughs Paloma. “It was a joy for me to have completed this work.” For the filmmaker’s daughter, being in Cannes with this film is Glauber Rocha’s natural trajectory.

“Yes, it’s the relaunch of ‘Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol’ for new audiences, but that’s not all,” says Paloma. “Glauber’s work has its strength, it walks by itself and remains extremely current”.

For Lucia Monteiro, in recent years, every time Brazil has appeared in Cannes, there has been a political impact.

“The presence of ‘Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol’, an extremely political film, and the non-presence of a Brazilian film in the official selection draw attention. This combination makes us think about our own cinema and show the world the difficulties that exist here”.