Associação Cultural Videobrasil

You believe that the goal of someone who makes a confrontational film is to “involve the audience in the middle of the gunfight.” Since when does the idea of confrontation guide your work? In that light, how do you assess your own evolution from U Olhu Du Povu and R$ 1,50 to O Fim do Homem Cordial?

The audience is already in the middle of the gunfight, always has been. The goal is to make them realize that a gunfight is going on. The system of oppression is a sophisticated one, it makes people so numb that facts can no longer be clearly perceived, happenings can no longer be understood, and confrontation can no longer be grasped.

In my work, confrontation begins in the moment when the city reveals itself, when the young artist finds that he is also in the middle of the battle, and when the creative process cannot be dissociated from the struggle that has been identified. That is why the first phase of my work, the college phase, has such a political, social, violent tinge to it, one which has already begun to change.

From U Olhu Du Povu and R$ 1,50, recordings of popular convulsions, to O Fim do Homem Cordial, I have managed to put together a social and political radiography of confrontation within the state. O Fim do Homem Cordial is nothing but a forecast, an anticipation of facts, the inevitable, the future chaos, the end of the cordiality for a population that can no longer stand its own poverty.

“We have learned Audiovisual Terrorism from TV and we will do it,” goes one of the commandments in the Manifesto Cinematográfico Anticordial [Anticordial Cinematographic Manifesto]. How did you develop the format of O Fim do Homem Cordial?

In Salvador there is an audiovisual empire formed by TV Bahia and TVE. Both of these stations work for the state government, therefore they work for Toninho Malvadeza (ACM). Audiovisual information is manipulated and funds are diverted for political propaganda, which infests TV commercials. Godfatherism and doing favors for friends are the prevailing practices. The province has been taken over. 

Just as terrorism strikes against the empire in the globalized system, within our context Audiovisual Terrorism strikes against the audiovisual empire. Just like them, we are aware of the power of image, and we, too, know how to do mean things (malvadezas), audiovisual malvadezas that we have learned from TV with our Middle-Eastern friends. 

O Fim do Homem Cordial is an audiovisual kidnapping. We steal the images they produced, manipulate them, and give them another meaning. This is audiovisual anthropophagy. The ransom was paid with the R$ 8,000 we won in a festival promoted by the state government. 

Did you expect O Fim do Homem Cordial to cause such an impact? How do you assess the result of the process that started after the video was censored in Bahia?

O Fim do Homem Cordial was made with a goal in mind. It was a bomb ready to go off in a certain place. And it was a successful attack, above all expectations. This was an unprecedented act in Bahia. Irreparable damage has been done to the Secretary for Culture, to the Cultural Foundation, and to DIMAS (Visual Arts and Multimedia Council). 

A new way of relating to audiovisual, by going all out, not fearing retaliation, by being dissatisfied and disobeying, was launched into this little monotonous world of purchased artwork, this state and its tourist culture.

It is not easy to deal with this type of art, which defies and proposes, attacks and exposes, hence the aberration of censorship in the 21st century. The fear of losing their jobs, of attracting the commander's wrath, leads to the anticensorship, the stupidity of trying to put out a fire using gasoline. The way in which culture is dealt with in Bahia was exposed to the whole of Brazil.

The O Fim do Homem Cordial situation has not yet been solved. The video was never shown in the room where the censoring occurred.

What did you look for in the characters portrayed by the Figuraça Project upon choosing them? Was the work made for TV? Was it ever shown on TV?

Figuraça is an audiovisual catalogue of the characters that comprise everyday life in the city. Every city has its characters, people who stand out due to their idiosyncrasies, and Salvador is no different. I am fascinated by different ways of confronting the world, reality, the city, through the variations of morality, through the transvaluation of prevailing values. These elements ultimately define the choice of characters.

The project was initially thought out for television aesthetics. However, we are thinking about changing that format. It is hard for us to get to show our project, and when we manage to do so, some of our characters' (figuraças) speeches are cut out. This is unacceptable.

How did you make Freqüência Hanói? How did you instruct the narrator?

Freqüência Hanói is a byproduct of a feature film we are making, me and my brother, Diego Lisboa, about a rapper from Bahia who is specialized in taking the stage away from big acts in order to show his own work... “A microphone thief.”

We built Freqüência Hanói borrowing some elements from this feature film. We combined the phone calls made by the rapper from the penitentiary to our home using a clandestine cell phone with images of telephone wires, from when we went to the penitentiary.

No instructions were given during the calls. We would just warn the inmate that we were recording.

Through the use of new technologies, our character breaks down physical barriers, frees his thoughts, and provides us with an inside view of the penitentiary system.

Freqüência Hanói belongs to Terrorismo Audiovisual, for it is an image crime.

What are your projects and priorities right now? Is Movimento Anticordial [Anticordial Movement] still on?

1. To keep on making my home videos (zero budget).

2. To keep on making Figuraça.

3. To keep on putting my projects into edicts in order to accomplish the most complex ones (on a budget).

4. To keep on doing underground VJ (projections).

5. To theorize and execute Terrorismo Audiovisual.

6. To fight for the survival of MovAC - Movimento Anticordial.