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Cosme Alves Netto (1937-1996)

La historia de la Cinemateca del MAM se entrelaza con la vida de Cosme. Cuál era la casa de Cosme? Si se entiende por tal al lugar donde se duerme, entonces no era la Cinemateca. Viendo las cosas con menos ortodoxia, diría que su casa sí fue la Cinemateca. De ahí que entre la Institución y Cosme no había barreras. La Cinemateca fue Cosme por casi 30 años.

Sería redundante hablar sobre su papel fundamental en la construcción y conservación de un acervo. Eso es ampliemante conocido y respetado por la FIAF. Quizás sea necesario recordar un lado poco conocido de su trabajo: su preocupación en la formación de un público cinematográfico durante el período de la dictadura militar, cosa nada segura para la época; y su interés en aydar a los jóvenes que llegaban a la Cinemateca.

Al confirmarse, en junio de 1995, la fecha de la primera exhibición cinematográfica en Río de Janeiro (08-07-1896), en la calle de Ouvider 57, en el centro de la ciudad, se fue un día en busca de esa direccíon, que ya no existe, para por lo menos descubrir cuál es el negocio que funciona an ese lagar. Estaba, con su meticulosidad habitual, empeñado en conseguir, cosa nada fácil, los planos de la época en la Municipalidad para definir el lugar. Esa era su obsesión de los últimos meses.

Cosme partió como le gustaba; calmadamente y acompañado por todo el Cine Brasileño. Mientras tanto, quienes convivimos, trabajamos y aprendimos a su lado, aún estamos discutiendo cuál era su filme proferido, hay varias versiones al respecto y no conseguimos llegar a un acuerdo. La situación le hubiera encantado...

Silvia Oroz, Cinemateca do MAM, Rio de Janeiro


Once upon a time in America there were some pioneers convinced that film was the motor capable of moving the sensibility of audiences and of promoting a manner of seeing the world through the eyes of a camera.

I met Cosme Alves Netto in Montevideo over thirty years ago. In Brazil, Cosme was learning to practice clandestinity. His political mistake had been to activate the film clubs of the Students Union, where Eisenstein's or Cocteau's films were also screened. In the following years, while successive military governments made life in Brazil more flexible, Cosme came to be the leader of the cultural experience in Rio de Janeiro. As the head of the Cinemateca do MAM, in those times in which the Cinema Nôvo presented itself strongly as a renewing movement, that movie-theatre at the Avenida Beira Mar, that film archive and that Museu, were the meeting and reflexive points for film in the sixties and beginning of the seventies. As the calm and sage Buddha or patriarch of this removing experiment, Cosme and the Cinemateca do MAM are the symbols of a time in which many things seemed to be possible and at hand's reach. Over the years, in a world in which many things have changed, the image of this young pioneer is tied to the beginnings of what was called the Comité de Cineastas de América Latina, an idea that was created at the Second Film Festival of Viña del Mar and grew as commitment in Havana. Cosme was part of the sponsoring group of the Escuela Internacional de Cinematografia de San Antonio de los Baños, co-directed the festivals of Rio de Janeiro as long as they existed and was assessor to Embrafilma. When death reached him he was consultant of FUNARTE at the Ministry of Culture. He was a live presence at the Cinemateca do MAM, as curator of a growing film patrimony, one of the largest in Latin America, and he contributed to its growth, partly because authors, filmmakers and producers trusted him. But curiously, the details of this path (which also includes his presence at the FIAF Executive Committee and at numerous congresses) is not capable of reflecting the sparkle of life, humor and sage irony with which Cosme protected himself against today's ups and downs or perhaps he just looked at them, an attitude maybe very Brazilian, or maybe very personal and non transferable.

More than thirty years ago, the pioneer Cosme carried film reels from one country to the other, led debates and discussed with other young people a future that is now our past, the past of a militant film culture. Twenty years ago, Cosme consolidated cultural structures and even the Cinemateca do MAM. Today he obliges us, who were his friends, (very often disagreeing, as it happened in such a critical and auto-critical generation as ours), to think things over and to gain back the whirlpool of positive ideas and actions that rose up in this continent. In these times of transnational, consumer and light culture, the answers might lie in these experiences of cultural life, of which Cosme was a first rate protagonist. Here is the hug to one of the survivors and companion who is gone, but never forgotten.

Manuel Martinez Carril, Cinemateca Uruguaya, Montevideo


Cosme Alves Netto was born in Manaus (state of Amazonas), on January 15, 1937. He came to Rio de Janeiro when he was 17, where he started to work in "cineclubes", a kind of non profitable theaters for exhibiting art films. Looking for art films not released by the commercial theaters and showing them to the public - mainly those from the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Latin America - became his passion. He is greatly responsible for the education of a generation of cinephiles during the sixties.

In 1965, when he started working at the Cinemateca do Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro, this early passion grew to a kind of healthy obsession, through the hard ways of preservation and restoration of the Brazilian film heritage. As chief-curator of the Cinemateca do MAM during 31 years, Cosme Alves Netto became a kind of symbol of film preservation in Brazil. He is greatly responsible for the Cinemateca's film archive, concerning mainly, of course, Brazilian films, but also international films, which he obtained through donations and exchanges.

Known as "film chaser", Cosme Alves Netto was in the front line for searching Brazilian films - not only in Brazil, but around the world, mainly those shot by foreign directors in our country.

Due to his strong ties with FIAF and his many international contacts, Cosme Alves Netto was able to bring many "art" and "rare" films to Brazil, which were shown at the Cinemateca and also in Festivals around the country. He was also a kind of "Latin American film ambassador", always fighting for a cinematography with which he so strongly identified himself.

He belonged to several national and international and film foundations and association, such as the Executive Committee of the New Latin American Cinema (Havana) and the Association du Cinéma Réel (Paris), and was counselor to many international festivals, such as Cartagena (Colombia), Assuncion (Paraguay), Trieste (Italy) and Locarno (Switzerland).

His trademark was a cigar between his lips, which he never abandoned, even after a severe heart attack, two years and a half ago, in Portugal. After a few months of rest, he reassumed his place at the Cinemateca, working with the same enthusiasm as ever. He worked until the last day of his life, and died, while he was asleep, during the night of January 2nd - the same way and day as Gene Kelly, star of Singing in the Rain, which he chose as one of his favorite films - the other was Miracolo a Milano, by Vittorio de Sica.

In his honor and memory, the auditorium of the Cinemateca will be named, in March, as "Sala Cosme Alves Netto", a small tribute to someone who meant so much to film preservation in Brazil.

Susana Schild, Cinemateca do MAM, Rio de Janeiro