Associação Cultural Videobrasil

The 38th São Paulo International Film Festival, showing from October 16 to 29, 2014, features two co-productions that are testimony to the work of the Associação Cultural Videobrasil-Sesc São Paulo partnership in connecting cinema and the visual arts. On October 25 (Saturday), at 8pm, Domingo (Sunday), filmmaker Karim Aïnouz’s new release, is set to premiere in an open-air screening at Largo São Francisco square, as part of the Centro Aberto São Francisco project in downtown São Paulo. On October 24, 25 and 28, Deserto Azul (Blue Desert, 2013), the new feature film by the artist Eder Santos, will be shown at CineSesc, the Museum of Image and Sound and São Paulo Cultural Center (see session times below). Both films had world premieres at the 2014 Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, an internationally acclaimed film industry event held from September 24 to October 8 in Rio de Janeiro.

Domingo is a poetic, authorial take on the interactions between the works of Danish visual artist Olafur Eliasson – brought to Latin America for the first time by Videobrasil in 2011 – and public spaces in the city of São Paulo, from the perspective of Karim Aïnouz. The film is built from footage taken in ten different Sundays, from February 12 to December 30 2012, in the city of São Paulo, creating a reference in time and space that helps outline a narrative marked by temporality. Rich in lights, textures and superimpositions, Aïnouz’s images give birth to a brand new São Paulo through the exercise of imagining connections between Eliasson’s work – marked by the creation of experiences from “emptiness,” the interruption of daily life and the reinvention of space – and this vast metropolis. Domingo is part of the Videobrasil Authors Collection – VAC series, created by Associação in partnership with Sesc São Paulo in 2000 to provide visibility to the thoughts and work processes of contemporary artists, from the perspectives of guest directors.

For its part, Deserto Azul is a science fiction piece featuring Odilon Esteves, Maria Luiza Mendonça, Ângelo Antônio and Chico Diaz. The cinematography for Deserto Azul was created by Pedro Farkas (A Ostra e o Vento, Um Copo de Cólera, Inocência, Os Desafinados and A Marvada Carne) and Stefan Ciupek, a digital postproduction specialist who has worked on international productions such as 127 Hours, Antichrist and the Academy Award-winning Who wants to be a millionaire?. The soundtrack was created by Stephen Vitiello with the participation of Fernanda Takai (from the band Pato Fu). The set designs feature artworks by 11 prominent visual artists such as Adriana Varejão, Carlito Carvalhosa, Nydia Negromonte, Rita Meyers, and Eder Santos himself. In the film, Ele (Portuguese for Him, played by Esteves) is a character tormented by intuitions and recurrent dreams that send him looking for answers to his misgivings. In seeking the transcendental blue desert, he receives revelations and engages in a puzzling contact with his soul mate. The film was screened at a guests-only session in November 2013, during the 18th Contemporary Art Festival Sesc_Videobrasil.

Since its inception in 1983, Videobrasil has carved out a position for itself as an organization whose Festival creates spaces for language experimentation and paradigm shifts, pairing up productions connected with experimentation and video art and artworks with a more film-oriented language ever since its early days. The event featured early productions by the filmmaker Fernando Meirelles (City of God, Blindness), such as Garotos do Subúrbio and Marly Normal, both of which were produced by the Olhar Eletrônico company in 1983, won prizes at the Festival and were incorporated into the Videobrasil Collection.

Over the years, the Festival went international, all the while keeping pace with (and often anticipating) the dynamics of contemporary art production, embracing the electronic arts and performance. In 2011, the event incorporated all existing art languages. All this time, Videobrasil remained a space for showing artworks that straddle the lines between film and the visual arts. Hybrid artworks spawned by an expanded cinema and created by the likes of Cao Guimarães, Carlos Nader, Kiko Goifman, Wagner Morales and Gabriel Mascaro, among others, were featured in various editions of the Festival and are part of the Videobrasil Collection.

Check out the full program and learn more about the films Deserto Azul and Domingo.

Sunday – Karim Aïnouz – 26’
October 25, 8pm
Centro Aberto São Francisco | Largo São Francisco, no number, São Paulo, Brazil

Blue Desert– Eder Santos, 2014 – 92’
October 24, 9:30pm
CineSesc | Rua Augusta, 2075, São Paulo, Brazil
October 25, 9:35pm

Museum of Image and Sound | Avenida Europa, 158, São Paulo, Brazil
October 28, 5pm
São Paulo Cultural Center (Paulo Meilio Hall)| Vergueiro Street, 1000, São Paulo, Brazil

Additional information:
http://38.mostra.org/en/home/