Chilean Raul Zurita, Dominican Marcio Veloz Maggiolo, and Portuguese Boaventura de Sousa Santos won on Friday the 2006 extraordinary Casa de Las Americas award in poetry, narration, and essay.
The winners of Jose Lezama Lima (poetry), Ezequiel Martinez Estrada (essay) and Jose Maria Arguedas (narration) awards were announced at a ceremony in the Che Guevara Hall of that cultural institution.
Raul Zurita won the Lezama Lima award for his INRI book of poems, which the jury praised.
Marcio Veloz Maggiolo won the award for his La Mosca Soldado (The Soldier Fly) novel.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos was awarded for raising a universal issue in a controversial way, abridging some of the most acute conflicts in current public policies.
The extraordinary Casa de Las Americas honorary awards have been granted for six years to the best books in the mentioned genres.
You can find the article here
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Selected Writings by Ruben Dario
A review of Rubén Darío's Selected Writings
In Spanish, there is poetry before and after Rubén Darío. The Nicaraguan (1867-1916) was the first major poet in the language since the seventeenth century, the end of the Golden Age whose masters included Garcilaso, Saint John of the Cross, Fray Luis, Góngora, Quevedo and Sor Juana. And despite an abundance of great poets in the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic--García Lorca, Alberti, Salinas, Cernuda, Neruda, Vallejo, Paz, Palés Matos, Lezama Lima, to name a few--his stature remains unequaled. The poetic revolution led by Darío spread across the Spanish-speaking world and extended to all of literature, not just poetry. He ushered Spanish-language poetry into the modern era by incorporating the aesthetic ideals and modern anxieties of Parnassianism and Symbolism, as Garcilaso had infused Castilian verse with Italianate forms and spirit in the sixteenth century, transforming it forever. Darío and Garcilaso led the two most profound poetic revolutions in Spanish, yet neither is known abroad, except by Hispanists. They have not traveled well, particularly in English-speaking countries, where they are all but unknown.
Darío's case is the most baffling because he is nearly our contemporary, whereas Garcilaso, who lived from 1501 to 1536, can today be safely left on library shelves along with Petrarch, Ronsard and Spenser. Besides, Garcilaso has by now been so thoroughly assimilated into Spanish poetic discourse that it is easy to overlook his presence in the poetry of Neruda and Paz. Darío's innovations, style and even manner are still contemporary, however, as are the polemics that his poetry provoked among other poets, professors and critics. What is more, his influence penetrated all levels of Latin American and Spanish society, where his voice is still audible in the lyrics of popular love songs; the artistic movement that he founded, Modernismo, had a tremendous impact on everything from ornaments to interior design, from furniture to fashion. Darío, more than a Nicaraguan poet or a Latin American poet, was a poet of the Spanish language--and its first literary celebrity, embraced throughout Latin America and Spain as the most original and modern of poetic voices.
You can find the full review here
In Spanish, there is poetry before and after Rubén Darío. The Nicaraguan (1867-1916) was the first major poet in the language since the seventeenth century, the end of the Golden Age whose masters included Garcilaso, Saint John of the Cross, Fray Luis, Góngora, Quevedo and Sor Juana. And despite an abundance of great poets in the twentieth century on both sides of the Atlantic--García Lorca, Alberti, Salinas, Cernuda, Neruda, Vallejo, Paz, Palés Matos, Lezama Lima, to name a few--his stature remains unequaled. The poetic revolution led by Darío spread across the Spanish-speaking world and extended to all of literature, not just poetry. He ushered Spanish-language poetry into the modern era by incorporating the aesthetic ideals and modern anxieties of Parnassianism and Symbolism, as Garcilaso had infused Castilian verse with Italianate forms and spirit in the sixteenth century, transforming it forever. Darío and Garcilaso led the two most profound poetic revolutions in Spanish, yet neither is known abroad, except by Hispanists. They have not traveled well, particularly in English-speaking countries, where they are all but unknown.
Darío's case is the most baffling because he is nearly our contemporary, whereas Garcilaso, who lived from 1501 to 1536, can today be safely left on library shelves along with Petrarch, Ronsard and Spenser. Besides, Garcilaso has by now been so thoroughly assimilated into Spanish poetic discourse that it is easy to overlook his presence in the poetry of Neruda and Paz. Darío's innovations, style and even manner are still contemporary, however, as are the polemics that his poetry provoked among other poets, professors and critics. What is more, his influence penetrated all levels of Latin American and Spanish society, where his voice is still audible in the lyrics of popular love songs; the artistic movement that he founded, Modernismo, had a tremendous impact on everything from ornaments to interior design, from furniture to fashion. Darío, more than a Nicaraguan poet or a Latin American poet, was a poet of the Spanish language--and its first literary celebrity, embraced throughout Latin America and Spain as the most original and modern of poetic voices.
You can find the full review here
Crime fiction in Cuba
The genre has pushed its limits, both aesthetically and politically, in the Mario Conde series of Leonardo Padura, Cuba's best known and most popular crime writer. And it has also crossed the language barrier, with bilingual authors in and out of Cuba who pen their books in English and enjoy a broader market than writers who depend on the vicissitudes of translation.
In her 2004 book on Cuban and Mexican crime fiction, Crimes Against the State Crimes Against Persons (University of Minnesota Press, $19.95), Persephone Braham identifies the genre as neopoliciacos. The Spanish policiaco, like the French policier, is the name for what in English goes by "detective" fiction. The difference is telling. Where the English and American genre stresses the private investigator (Sherlock Holmes), Latin countries focus on the policeman (Inspector Maigret), reflecting societies that privilege the individual or the state, respectively. Of course, the attitudes converge in the figure of the maverick cop (Dirty Harry), an important anti-hero role model for societies like Cuba, and to some extent Mexico, that are or have been run by one-party governments intolerant of dissent.
Policiacos from the early years of the Cuban Revolution, according to Braham, were naively schematic, with the policía as the good revolutionary battling the dastardly plots of exiles and the CIA. But two forces pushed the genre in a different direction.
You can find the full article here
In her 2004 book on Cuban and Mexican crime fiction, Crimes Against the State Crimes Against Persons (University of Minnesota Press, $19.95), Persephone Braham identifies the genre as neopoliciacos. The Spanish policiaco, like the French policier, is the name for what in English goes by "detective" fiction. The difference is telling. Where the English and American genre stresses the private investigator (Sherlock Holmes), Latin countries focus on the policeman (Inspector Maigret), reflecting societies that privilege the individual or the state, respectively. Of course, the attitudes converge in the figure of the maverick cop (Dirty Harry), an important anti-hero role model for societies like Cuba, and to some extent Mexico, that are or have been run by one-party governments intolerant of dissent.
Policiacos from the early years of the Cuban Revolution, according to Braham, were naively schematic, with the policía as the good revolutionary battling the dastardly plots of exiles and the CIA. But two forces pushed the genre in a different direction.
You can find the full article here
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez
A review of Guillermo Martinez' The Oxford Murders.
Nothing could be more English than a murder mystery set in Oxford, but Argentinian writer Guillermo Martinez manages to appropriate Morseland with surprisingly assured results. As in all good detective stories, the novel features an unlikely sleuthing twosome - in this case, a young mathematical student from Buenos Aires and his mentor, the fusty Oxford logician Arthur Seldom. The contrast between old and new-world sensibilities is what lends the novel its low-key charm.
You can find the full review here
Guillermo Martinez was born the 29th of July 1962 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina.
He has made a dual career in mathematics and literature.
Martinez' work has been translated into 25 languages.
Nothing could be more English than a murder mystery set in Oxford, but Argentinian writer Guillermo Martinez manages to appropriate Morseland with surprisingly assured results. As in all good detective stories, the novel features an unlikely sleuthing twosome - in this case, a young mathematical student from Buenos Aires and his mentor, the fusty Oxford logician Arthur Seldom. The contrast between old and new-world sensibilities is what lends the novel its low-key charm.
You can find the full review here
Guillermo Martinez was born the 29th of July 1962 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina.
He has made a dual career in mathematics and literature.
Martinez' work has been translated into 25 languages.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
In praise of the novel
Carlos Fuentes' inaugural speech at the International Literature Festival Berlin, on 6 September 2005.
Carlos Fuentes celebrates the democratic revolution set in motion by Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, and the dialogue of civilisations created by "world literature".
Not long ago, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters addressed one hundred writers from all over the world with a single question: name the novel that you consider the best ever written.
Of the one hundred consulted, fifty answered: Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Quite a landslide, considering the runners up: Dostoevsky, Faulkner and García Márquez, in that order.
The results of this consultation pose the interesting question of the long-seller versus the best-seller. There is, of course, no answer that fits all cases: why does a best-seller sell, why does a long-seller last?
Don Quixote was a big bestseller when it first appeared in 1605 and has continued to sell ever since, whereas William Faulkner was definitively a bad seller if you compare the meagre sales of Absalom, Absalom (1936) to those of the really big-seller of the year, Hervey Allen’s Anthony Adverse, a Napoleonic saga of love, war and trade.
Which means that there is no actual thermometer in these matters, even if time will not only tell: time will sell.
You can find the full article here
Carlos Fuentes celebrates the democratic revolution set in motion by Cervantes' novel Don Quixote, and the dialogue of civilisations created by "world literature".
Not long ago, the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters addressed one hundred writers from all over the world with a single question: name the novel that you consider the best ever written.
Of the one hundred consulted, fifty answered: Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Quite a landslide, considering the runners up: Dostoevsky, Faulkner and García Márquez, in that order.
The results of this consultation pose the interesting question of the long-seller versus the best-seller. There is, of course, no answer that fits all cases: why does a best-seller sell, why does a long-seller last?
Don Quixote was a big bestseller when it first appeared in 1605 and has continued to sell ever since, whereas William Faulkner was definitively a bad seller if you compare the meagre sales of Absalom, Absalom (1936) to those of the really big-seller of the year, Hervey Allen’s Anthony Adverse, a Napoleonic saga of love, war and trade.
Which means that there is no actual thermometer in these matters, even if time will not only tell: time will sell.
You can find the full article here
Gabriel Garcia Marquez admits to one year of writer's block
The Nobel Prize-winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, pioneer of the school of magical realism and probably the best known contemporary author in the Spanish-speaking world, has confessed to suffering from that most humble of literary problems: writer's block.
"I've stopped writing. 2005 has been the first year of my life when I haven't written a line," the Colombian storyteller who revolutionised Latin American literature said in a rare interview with a newspaper at his home in Mexico City.
Garcia Marquez, who galvanised the world with his 1967 epic One Hundred Years of Solitude, is to be guest of honour at Britain's Hay on Wye international literary festival, which opens today in Colombia's Caribbean port of Cartagena, the writer's birthplace. "In practice, with the experience I have, I could write a new novel without any problem, but people would realise that I hadn't put my heart into it," he told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper, which will publish the interview on Sunday.
You can find the full article here
Find Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Books at Amazon.com
"I've stopped writing. 2005 has been the first year of my life when I haven't written a line," the Colombian storyteller who revolutionised Latin American literature said in a rare interview with a newspaper at his home in Mexico City.
Garcia Marquez, who galvanised the world with his 1967 epic One Hundred Years of Solitude, is to be guest of honour at Britain's Hay on Wye international literary festival, which opens today in Colombia's Caribbean port of Cartagena, the writer's birthplace. "In practice, with the experience I have, I could write a new novel without any problem, but people would realise that I hadn't put my heart into it," he told Barcelona's La Vanguardia newspaper, which will publish the interview on Sunday.
You can find the full article here
Find Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Books at Amazon.com
Friday, January 20, 2006
Curfew by Jose Donoso
Review of José Donoso's Curfew
The exile's return to his native land is the subject of some of the best writing from Latin America in recent years. Julio Cortazar in ''Hopscotch'' and Alejo Carpentier in ''The Lost Steps'' have played brilliant variations on the theme ''you can't go home again.'' Jose Donoso returned to Chile in 1980 after 15 years in Europe. He now lives in Santiago. In ''Curfew'' he has created a small masterpiece in the familiar genre. The book's protagonist is a famous singer of protest songs named Manungo Vera, just returned to Chile after 13 years in Paris. He hasn't been off the plane an hour when someone asks him the inevitable question: ''How does it feel to be living under a dictatorship?'' We already know by then that ''Curfew'' is both the story of a man's search for his roots and a portrait of Chile in the second decade of a military dictatorship no one knows how to get rid of.
You can find the full review here
Buy Curfew at Amazon.com
Latin american literature
The exile's return to his native land is the subject of some of the best writing from Latin America in recent years. Julio Cortazar in ''Hopscotch'' and Alejo Carpentier in ''The Lost Steps'' have played brilliant variations on the theme ''you can't go home again.'' Jose Donoso returned to Chile in 1980 after 15 years in Europe. He now lives in Santiago. In ''Curfew'' he has created a small masterpiece in the familiar genre. The book's protagonist is a famous singer of protest songs named Manungo Vera, just returned to Chile after 13 years in Paris. He hasn't been off the plane an hour when someone asks him the inevitable question: ''How does it feel to be living under a dictatorship?'' We already know by then that ''Curfew'' is both the story of a man's search for his roots and a portrait of Chile in the second decade of a military dictatorship no one knows how to get rid of.
You can find the full review here
Buy Curfew at Amazon.com
Latin american literature
Fernando Meirelles' film gets 10 nominations for the British Academy Film Awards
Socially conscious spy yarn "The Constant Gardener" led the nominations Thursday for the British Academy Film Awards, with 10 nods including best picture.
The film's stars, Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, both received acting nominations. The film's Brazilian director, Fernando Meirelles, also is up for an award.
You can find the full article here
The film's stars, Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz, both received acting nominations. The film's Brazilian director, Fernando Meirelles, also is up for an award.
You can find the full article here
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Jose Saramago (Portugal)
Biography:
José Saramago, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Azinhaga on 18 November 1922.
For financial reasons he abandoned his high-school studies and worked as a mechanic. After trying different jobs in the civil service, he worked for a publishing company for twelve years and then for newspapers, at one time as assistant editor of "Diário de Notícias".Between 1975/ 80 Saramago supported himself as a translator but since his literary successes in the 1980s he has devoted himself to his own writing. His international breakthrough came in 1982 with Baltasar and Blimunda. Since 1992 he has been living on Lanzarote.
Works:
1947 - Terra do pecado
1966 - Os poemas possíveis
1970 - Provavelmente alegria
1971 - Deste mundo e do outro
1973 - A bagagem do viajante
1974 - As opiniões que o D.L. teve
1975 - O ano de 1993
1976 - Os apontamentos
1977 - Manual de pintura e caligrafia (Manual of Painting and Calligraphy: A Novel)
1978 - Objecto quase
1979 - A noite
1980 - Levantado do chão
1980 - Que farei com este livro
1981 - Viagem a Portugal (Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture)
1982 - Memorial do convento (Baltasar and Blimunda)
1984 - O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis)
1986 - A jangada de pedra (The Stone Raft)
1987 - A segunda vida de Francisco de Assis
1989 - História do cerco de Lisboa (The History of the Siege of Lisbon)
1992 - O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ)
1993 - In nomine Dei
1994 - Cadernos de Lanzarote I
1995 - Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness)
1995 - Cadernos de Lanzarote II
1996 - Cadernos de Lanzarote III
1997 - Todos os nomes (All the Names)
1997 - Cadernos de Lanzarote IV
1998 - Cadernos de Lanzarote V
1999 - O conto da ilha desconhecida (The Tale of the Unknown Island)
1999 - Discursos de Estocolmo
1999 - Folhas políticas (1976-1998)
2000 - A caverna (The Cave)
2000 - A face de Saramago
2001 - A maior flor do mundo
2002 - O homem duplicado (The Double)
2004 - Ensaio sobre a lucidez (Seeing)
2005 - Don Giovanni ou o dissoluto absolvido
2005 - As intermitências da morte
Awards:
1980 - Prémio Cidade de Lisboa
1983 and 1984 - Prémio PEN Club Português
1986 - Prémio da Crítica da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores
1991 - Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela
1993 - Prémio Vida Literária
1995 - Prémio Camões
1998 - Nobel Prize for Literature
Related Posts:
Three Nobel prizes and six other writers ask for the end of the process against Orhan Pamuk
Blindness by Jose Saramago (Review)
The Double by Jose Saramago (Review)
José Saramago, recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Azinhaga on 18 November 1922.
For financial reasons he abandoned his high-school studies and worked as a mechanic. After trying different jobs in the civil service, he worked for a publishing company for twelve years and then for newspapers, at one time as assistant editor of "Diário de Notícias".Between 1975/ 80 Saramago supported himself as a translator but since his literary successes in the 1980s he has devoted himself to his own writing. His international breakthrough came in 1982 with Baltasar and Blimunda
. Since 1992 he has been living on Lanzarote.Works:
1947 - Terra do pecado
1966 - Os poemas possíveis
1970 - Provavelmente alegria
1971 - Deste mundo e do outro
1973 - A bagagem do viajante
1974 - As opiniões que o D.L. teve
1975 - O ano de 1993
1976 - Os apontamentos
1977 - Manual de pintura e caligrafia (Manual of Painting and Calligraphy: A Novel)
1978 - Objecto quase
1979 - A noite
1980 - Levantado do chão
1980 - Que farei com este livro
1981 - Viagem a Portugal (Journey to Portugal: In Pursuit of Portugal's History and Culture)
1982 - Memorial do convento (Baltasar and Blimunda)
1984 - O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis (The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis)
1986 - A jangada de pedra (The Stone Raft)
1987 - A segunda vida de Francisco de Assis
1989 - História do cerco de Lisboa (The History of the Siege of Lisbon)
1992 - O Evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo (The Gospel According to Jesus Christ)
1993 - In nomine Dei
1994 - Cadernos de Lanzarote I
1995 - Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Blindness)
1995 - Cadernos de Lanzarote II
1996 - Cadernos de Lanzarote III
1997 - Todos os nomes (All the Names)
1997 - Cadernos de Lanzarote IV
1998 - Cadernos de Lanzarote V
1999 - O conto da ilha desconhecida (The Tale of the Unknown Island)
1999 - Discursos de Estocolmo
1999 - Folhas políticas (1976-1998)
2000 - A caverna (The Cave)
2000 - A face de Saramago
2001 - A maior flor do mundo
2002 - O homem duplicado (The Double)
2004 - Ensaio sobre a lucidez (Seeing)
2005 - Don Giovanni ou o dissoluto absolvido
2005 - As intermitências da morte
Awards:
1980 - Prémio Cidade de Lisboa
1983 and 1984 - Prémio PEN Club Português
1986 - Prémio da Crítica da Associação Portuguesa de Escritores
1991 - Grande Prémio de Romance e Novela
1993 - Prémio Vida Literária
1995 - Prémio Camões
1998 - Nobel Prize for Literature
Related Posts:
Three Nobel prizes and six other writers ask for the end of the process against Orhan Pamuk
Blindness by Jose Saramago (Review)
The Double by Jose Saramago (Review)
Francisco Goya on Film
Czech director Milos Forman's movie about 18th-century Spanish artist Francisco Goya, Goya's Ghosts, looks as if it could be ready for release this summer. Forman completed filming at the end of December and is now starting post-production. The movie, which stars actors Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman (who plays Goya's teenage muse), should receive its world première in Prague.
You can find the full article here.
You can find the full article here.
Take my Eyes - Movie Review
A review of Spanish director Iciar Bollain's "Te doy mis ojos"
Spanish director Iciar Bollain tackles the harsh reality of domestic violence in Spain in this gritty drama, focusing on a woman’s personal battle between love and fear, as well as raising interesting questions about the wider cultural picture of a patriarchal society.
Scooping seven Goya awards (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars), Bollain's dramatic portrayal of Pilar, played brilliantly by Laia Marull, as a woman trapped in a relationship with an insecure and aggressive husband, Antonio, (Luis Tosar), owes more than a nod to the films of Ken Loach, in particular Nil By Mouth. Interestingly, Bollain has actually written a book about the famous British director and is married to his friend and collaborator, Paul Laverty.
You can find the full article here.
Spanish director Iciar Bollain tackles the harsh reality of domestic violence in Spain in this gritty drama, focusing on a woman’s personal battle between love and fear, as well as raising interesting questions about the wider cultural picture of a patriarchal society.
Scooping seven Goya awards (Spain's equivalent of the Oscars), Bollain's dramatic portrayal of Pilar, played brilliantly by Laia Marull, as a woman trapped in a relationship with an insecure and aggressive husband, Antonio, (Luis Tosar), owes more than a nod to the films of Ken Loach, in particular Nil By Mouth. Interestingly, Bollain has actually written a book about the famous British director and is married to his friend and collaborator, Paul Laverty.
You can find the full article here.
Fabian Bielinsky and Breno Silveira share some behind-the-scenes experiences
Fabian Bielinsky ("The Aura", "Nine Queens") and Breno Silveira ("Two Sons of Francisco") share some behind-the-scenes experiences.
Fabian Bielinsky's second film, following his international hit, 2002's "Nine Queens," is a thriller about an epileptic whose life changes when he accidentally kills a man, only to discover that the victim was about to commit a major crime.
I wrote this as a quite conventional thriller 20 years ago, just after I left film school, then forgot about it. And then I took up the original idea again, and it went in a completely different direction when I decided to make the main character an epileptic.
This character's obsession is control; he is a control freak in a way. Everything in him is about control. But there is this contradiction: He cannot even control his state of mind.
When I was doing the research and talking to neurologists, I bumped into the aura thing, which I didn't know about. It is something that happens just before the epileptic fit, when the whole state of mind and perception changes, and it is completely different from one person to another. It goes from lasting just one second, with some people, to several minutes, and sometimes there are hallucinations. The reaction from patients is completely different, one from the other. Some people hate their auras because they are like an advance warning of the nightmare fit to come, and others love it. Our main consultant, a very well-known neurologist in Buenos Aires, told me that some people asked him not to get cured because they didn't want to lose the aura.
This was something that really got to me, and I said, "This is a very cinematic thing." In a way, the aura coming before the fit is the picture of inevitability because there is nothing to do about it.
When the film came out, I was wondering what people would say about it, and our adviser called me and said some of his patients were very pleased. They could take their family to the movie and say, "This is what happens to me."
(...)
Brazilian director Breno Silveira worked for years in documentaries before making his feature debut with this film about two real-life Brazilian singers and their rise from rags to riches.
When I was very young, my father gave me my first camera. He had a kind of black-and-white lab in the house, in the bathroom, and I started to take pictures. I don't know how, but I just became a photographer, and one day someone asked me to take photos on a movie set. It was a very passionate experience for me.
Then I went to university to study marine biology, but I was so sad. I didn't like it, staring at fish, and I told my parents I wanted to leave. They were very surprised. But a very famous photographer was visiting my father's office -- my father is an architect -- and he saw these photos on the wall and wanted to know whose they were, and my father said they were mine. So, he started letting me work for him, and I began to make documentaries, especially shooting in the favelas. And I'd shoot there for the BBC and other television companies.
At one point, I won a scholarship to go to film school in Paris. But I had very little money when I came back. It was a very bad time in Brazil in the late 1980s, and there were only about 10 films being made each year. I lived in a tiny, tiny apartment. It was very difficult.
I started to do (commercials and music videos). And then we did a music video for these two singers, Zeze di Camargo & Luciano. They are very well known in Brazil, but they are like country singers -- not at all from my world. They wanted me to make a movie about their life, but I kept saying "No, no, no."
And then they told me their story, and it is full of events and tragedy -- about how their father was a peasant farmer, and how he always dreamed that they would be singers, how he sold everything he had, and how they had no food, and how they started to sing, and one of the brothers was killed in a terrible accident. I thought, "This is very interesting."
Now, after the film, their father is like a star here! When the film was finished, everybody came to see it in Brazil. It did better than (Warner Bros. Pictures') "Batman Begins."
You can find the full article here.
") and Breno Silveira ("Two Sons of Francisco") share some behind-the-scenes experiences.Fabian Bielinsky's second film, following his international hit, 2002's "Nine Queens," is a thriller about an epileptic whose life changes when he accidentally kills a man, only to discover that the victim was about to commit a major crime.
I wrote this as a quite conventional thriller 20 years ago, just after I left film school, then forgot about it. And then I took up the original idea again, and it went in a completely different direction when I decided to make the main character an epileptic.
This character's obsession is control; he is a control freak in a way. Everything in him is about control. But there is this contradiction: He cannot even control his state of mind.
When I was doing the research and talking to neurologists, I bumped into the aura thing, which I didn't know about. It is something that happens just before the epileptic fit, when the whole state of mind and perception changes, and it is completely different from one person to another. It goes from lasting just one second, with some people, to several minutes, and sometimes there are hallucinations. The reaction from patients is completely different, one from the other. Some people hate their auras because they are like an advance warning of the nightmare fit to come, and others love it. Our main consultant, a very well-known neurologist in Buenos Aires, told me that some people asked him not to get cured because they didn't want to lose the aura.
This was something that really got to me, and I said, "This is a very cinematic thing." In a way, the aura coming before the fit is the picture of inevitability because there is nothing to do about it.
When the film came out, I was wondering what people would say about it, and our adviser called me and said some of his patients were very pleased. They could take their family to the movie and say, "This is what happens to me."
(...)
Brazilian director Breno Silveira worked for years in documentaries before making his feature debut with this film about two real-life Brazilian singers and their rise from rags to riches.
When I was very young, my father gave me my first camera. He had a kind of black-and-white lab in the house, in the bathroom, and I started to take pictures. I don't know how, but I just became a photographer, and one day someone asked me to take photos on a movie set. It was a very passionate experience for me.
Then I went to university to study marine biology, but I was so sad. I didn't like it, staring at fish, and I told my parents I wanted to leave. They were very surprised. But a very famous photographer was visiting my father's office -- my father is an architect -- and he saw these photos on the wall and wanted to know whose they were, and my father said they were mine. So, he started letting me work for him, and I began to make documentaries, especially shooting in the favelas. And I'd shoot there for the BBC and other television companies.
At one point, I won a scholarship to go to film school in Paris. But I had very little money when I came back. It was a very bad time in Brazil in the late 1980s, and there were only about 10 films being made each year. I lived in a tiny, tiny apartment. It was very difficult.
I started to do (commercials and music videos). And then we did a music video for these two singers, Zeze di Camargo & Luciano. They are very well known in Brazil, but they are like country singers -- not at all from my world. They wanted me to make a movie about their life, but I kept saying "No, no, no."
And then they told me their story, and it is full of events and tragedy -- about how their father was a peasant farmer, and how he always dreamed that they would be singers, how he sold everything he had, and how they had no food, and how they started to sing, and one of the brothers was killed in a terrible accident. I thought, "This is very interesting."
Now, after the film, their father is like a star here! When the film was finished, everybody came to see it in Brazil. It did better than (Warner Bros. Pictures') "Batman Begins."
You can find the full article here.
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