Tropical treats

>>Warm your freezing cinematic soul with
the prize-winning offerings at the first annual Montreal Brazil Film Fest

by MALCOLM FRASER

Just when you thought the annual film festival marathon had come to a close, another one rears its head. But in this prematurely snowy season, an infusion of sunshine and tropical culture might be just the kind of medicine your cinephile soul needs.

Enter the first annual Montreal Brazil Film Fest, a concise showcase of the South American juggernaut’s finest cinematic offerings of the past few years, running over the next week at Cinéma du Parc.

The country’s massive geography, and the cultural differences and divisions it creates, is the motivating factor in a couple of the festival’s selections. João Falcão’s The Machine, a multiple prize-winner on the Brazilian festival circuit, is set in a remote small town where an idealistic girl’s dreams of world travel inspire her boyfriend to extreme flights of fancy in order to keep her home. Malu de Martino’s Women of Brazil is a documentary-fiction blend that tells the stories of five women writers who live in different corners of Brazil, portraying their everyday lives and struggles.

An official selection at this year’s Sundance festival, Heitor Dhalia’s Drained is the story of a cruel and petty pawn shop owner who finds himself in a reversal of fortune, suddenly at the mercy of the customers whose hard times he’s exploited. Sérgio Goldenberg’s Maria’s Place tells the tale of two childhood friends reunited by a chance encounter, and the havoc their rekindled crush wreaks on their current lives. For my money, the best bet for your entertainment buck among the fiction selections is Antonia, the story of four girls trying to make it with their hip hop group in the hard-knock streets of Sao Paulo.

For the more factually inclined, the fest is also presenting a number of documentaries, many of which are reflections on Brazil’s national identity. Soccer fans, and those intrigued by the phenomenon, will no doubt enjoy Hank Levine, Marcelo Machado and Tocha Alves’ Ginga, named after the mythical, uniquely Brazilian je ne sais quoi that makes a soccer player great. Luiz Fernando Goulart’s Mestre Bimba, The Enlightened Capoeira tells the story of Manuel dos Reis Machado, an early 20th century Afro-Brazilian who pioneered the art of capoeira, a mixture of ballet and martial arts with roots in slave culture. Lírio Ferreira and Hilton Lacerda’s Cartola is the biography of one of the country’s legendary samba composers and the effect his music had on the culture at large.

Socially conscious types should check out House-warming Party, by Toni Venturi and Pablo Georgieff, which captures a socio-political action group formed by four impoverished rural women who met on the streets of Sao Paulo, and who organize a mass occupation of abandoned buildings by the city’s street people. On a more academic tip, Lúica Murat takes an insider’s look at the outsider’s gaze with The Foreign Eye, which documents the history of Brazil’s image in world cinema. And on an entirely lighter note, Daniela Kallmann and Flávia Lins e Silva’s Meet You at the Beach portrays the range of Brazil’s beach culture.

There’s something for all tastes in this panorama, and although the cold wind that greets you coming out of the theatre will no doubt feel all the more bitter, it’ll be worth it to check out these flicks, most of which have won acclaim at international festivals but are screening here for the first time.

The Montreal Brazil Film Fest runs DEC. 14–20
at the Cinéma du Parc; see www.cinemaduparc.com
or Repertory listings for details

>> Movie Listings