MOMA Premiere Brazil! 2012
A collaboration between The MOMA and the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, the annual Premiere Brazil!festival introduces New York audiences to original and accomplished work by both new and established Brazilian filmmakers.
To celebrate the 10th edition of Premiere Brazil!, the MOMA will present exciting new works by filmmakers we have previously featured, including Eduardo Coutinho, the subject of a Premiere Brazil! retrospective in 2009; Beto Brant, in his third appearance; Selton Mello, who premiered his first film, Merry Christmas in the 2009 edition; Breno Silveira, whose Two Sons of Francisco screened in 2006; and Eryk Rocha, whose feature debut, Passerby, delivers on the promise of his short films from previous Premiere Brazil! festivals.
Talented newcomers to Premiere Brazil! include Kiko Goifman and Claudia Priscilla, with the astonishing documentary Look at Me Again; and Vinicius Coimbra, whose Brazilian Western, Matraga, shows an impressive grasp of period filmmaking.
Special treats for the 10th anniversary include two films by a group of young directors about their life in their favelas: 5 x Favela: Now By Ourselves, a collection of five fiction shorts about various aspects of favela-dwelling; and Peace in Rio, a documentary about the controversial social policing of the favelas.
Tonight's round-table discussion is copresented with Cinema Tropical and VOCES, Latino Heritage Network of The New York Times Company.
Heleno
2011. Brazil. Directed by José Henrique Fonseca. With Rodrigo Santoro, Alinne Moraes, Angie Cepeda. Handsome, intelligent, and born into a wealthy family, Heleno de Freitas had one boyhood dream: to play football. Yet his chances of playing for Brazil in the World Cup faded when World War II led to the cancellation of the 1942 and 1946 tournaments. By the next World Cup, in 1950, his career—and his health—were on the wane. In a reflection of the decreasing prosperity of Brazil during the 1940s, the weight of real life crushed Heleno's great promise and dreams. The film's flashbacks, shot in gorgeously lit black-and-white, re-create the glamorous, romantic Rio of the 1940s as an oasis amid chaos. Santoro's strong lead performance, based on the real life of Brazil’s first soccer star, Botafogo legend Heleno de Freitas, opens up the story to belong to anyone who has ever been consumed by the very dream that first inspired them. Portuguese with English subtitles. 107 min.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012, 4:00 p.m., Theater 1
Corações Sujos (Dirty Hearts)
2011. Brazil. Directed by Vicente Amorim. Based on the novel by Fernando Morais. With Tsuyoshi Ihara, Takako Tokiwa, Eduardo Moscovis. When Japan's surrender ended World War II, a new war started in Brazil, between Japanese immigrants who accepted the defeat and those who did not. Dirty Hearts tells the little-known story of this delicate time through the eyes of a woman whose husband becomes embroiled with the Shindo Renmei, a Japanese-Brazilian terrorist group active in São Paulo in the 1940s. Her mounting horror is palpable as she and their small daughter watch him succumb to nationalism and fanaticism. Neighbor turns against neighbor in their isolated, alienated community of immigrants who are already treated like second-class citizens by the native Brazilians. In Japanese and Portuguese; English subtitles. 107 min.
Monday, July 23, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
