The Films of Nelson Pereira dos Santos:

A Cinema for, and with, the people

The 11th Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, in collaboration with the UT Brazil Center, is proud to present eight films by Brazilian master Nelson Pereira dos Santos. This retrospective is intended to share with our community the works of one of the most important and provocative auteurs in the history of independent cinema.

Pereira is considered to be the “Father of New Brazilian Cinema,” or Cinema Novo, a movement influenced by Italian neo-realism and the French New Wave. Cinema Novo fundamentally transformed filmmaking in Latin America by offering a radically new production model. The movement was generally characterized by low budget productions, the use of minimal equipment (a camera and some lights,) location shooting and the use of untrained actors.

Other filmmakers associated with Cinema Novo are Ruy Guerra, Glauber Rocha, Joaquim Pedro de Andrade and Carlos Diegues. Although these filmmakers’ styles and themes are very different, the orientation of these filmmakers was strongly progressive. Their aim was to make films that revealed the “real Brazil.” The groundbreaking ethnographic representation of Brazil’s black and indigenous people and their cultures was key to forging a national film identity. The filmmakers of Cinema Novo were expressing their nation’s culture and creating it at the same time.
Pereira’s films may have defined a movement but his work defies categorization. The films in this series show how, by pushing the limits of traditional narrative and experimenting with camera placement and point of view, he unveiled new dimensions within the possibilities of filmmaking.

Born in São Paulo in 1928, Pereira trained as a lawyer and worked as a journalist before embarking on a filmmaking career in the early 1950’s. Pereira’s first feature, Rio, 40 graus, set the standard for independent cinema in Brazil. The film was made independently, funded by a collective made up of the cast and crew of the film. Through interweaving stories that explore the five boroughs of Rio de Janeiro, Pereira presents us with one of the first Brazilian films shot in Rio’s de Janeiro’s favelas (shantytowns), and also among the first to feature Afro-Brazilian protagonists. He portrayed Rio as a city with massively disparate social classes. In a macabre example of life imitating art that imitated life, Rio, 40 graus was banned by Brazil’s Federal Department of Public Safety. It would not be the last time Pereira’s work would be banned or threatened by censors.

Pereira evokes though his work the feeling that one is witnessing cinema with a purpose. His work projects an urgency to communicate the plight of the voiceless. His protagonists are often faced with threats and challenges from poverty, hunger, colonialism, fascism and an antiquated social class system.
Each of Pereira’s films, especially those set in the past, are allegories addressing important events of his time. Vidas secas references issues of land reform; Como era gostoso o meu francês is an allegory for the struggle for contemporary indigenous land rights, while Memorias do carcere recognizes the horrors of past and recent dictatorships.

In a prolific career spanning almost sixty years Pereira has achieved a rare feat; he has created complex films that can be enjoyed as popular entertainment, daring socio-political commentary, and works of art all at the same time. Engaging and provocative, expressive and critical, Pereira’s work is above all always deeply humanist. His aim has always been to make “popular cinema, ” a cinema for, and with, the people.

Pereira is the screenwriter for all of the films in this series. He is the first filmmaker ever to be elected to the Brazilian Academy of Literature. Many of the films are adapted from novels from the canon of great Brazilian literature penned by literary giants like Graciliano Ramos, Jorge Amado and João Guimares Rosa.

At the time this was written, Pereira, 81, had sequestered himself in an undisclosed location to finish writing his next film. His last film, Brasilia 18%, was released in 2006.
-Jacqueline Rush Rivera, Director of Programming, Cine Las Americas

Quotes:

“… the most important and coherent body of work in the history of Brazilian and, arguably, Latin American cinema.” - Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City

“It was a shocking experience, revolutionary, radical, to film without a filter, with a naked lens, to shine the light directly on the characters’ faces.” – Nelson Pereira dos Santos about Vidas secas

“A camera in your hand and an idea in your head.” - Glauber Rocha on Cinema Novo

“Alienation originates from a society that is unjust, where lots of questions are avoided.” – Nelson Pereira dos Santos interviewed by Gerald O’Grady, 1995

“[Italian] Neorealism was a lesson in production, not a thematic influence. On the contrary, neorealism was something that gave us the courage to go out and film-let’s film in the street, you don’t have to be a professional actor, you don’t have to be a star, you don’t need a studio, you don’t need great equipment, you don’t need big financial resources or a fortune to make a movie.” – Nelson Pereira dos Santos interviewed by Gerald O’Grady, 1995

“My intention, when I began filming, was to participate, through culture and through politics. One always participates politically when one participates culturally. Cultural and political participation means making films alongside and with people; not to teach, but to learn with them and the practice of making films.” - Nelson Pereira dos Santos, 1975

To see the films programmed in this retrospective, click here…

Sponsors

The Cine Las Americas Media Arts Center, Austin Film Society, Consulate General of Brazil in Houston, the University of Texas at Austin’s Brazil Center of LLILAS, Dept. of Radio TV-Film, and the Amon G. Carter, Sr., Centennial Professorship in Communication.

This project is funded in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.