Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Watch us on Youtube Join the Archive Mailing List Read our Blog

Playing (Brazil, 2007); Santiago (Brazil, 2007)

Santiago (2007)
July 18, 2014 - 7:30 pm

Playing (Jogo de cena) (Brazil, 2007)

“When does an actual life story end and a performance of the same story begin? This is the question driving Eduardo Coutinho’s engrossing ‘Playing.’”  – Variety

Directed by Eduardo Coutinho.

Filmmaker Eduardo Coutinho’s Playing is an exhilarating look at performance, storytelling, the lives of women, the line between fiction and documentary, and so much more.  After an open call for women over the age of 18 “with interesting stories to tell,” Coutinho filmed a handful of respondents recounting dramatic stories of heartbreak, loss and love.  He then asked some of Brazil’s finest actresses recreate the interviews, using the monologues as texts, complicating our responses throughout. 

Matizar, VideoFilmes. Producer: Bia Almeida, Raquel Freire Zangrandi. Cinematographer: Jacques Cheuiche. Editor: Jordana Berg. Cast: Marília Pêra, Andrea Beltrão, Fernanda Torres, Aleta Gomes Vieira, Claudiléa Cerqueira de Lemos.

35mm, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 100 min.

Santiago (Brazil, 2007)

“An exemplary postmodern documentary that considers the limits and potential of film to convey ideas, João Salles’ ‘Santiago’ is a deeply human work of art.” – Variety

Directed by João Moreira Salles.

One of Brazil’s most acclaimed documentaries, Santiago finds director João Moreira Salles returning to a film he abandoned years before after he hears news that its subject, Santiago, his family’s butler, has died.  Re-encountering the extraordinary and complex person of Santiago as well as his own past self in the footage, Salles reconstructs a fascinating portrait of both in a unique character study that inquires into the nature of memory, identity and documentary filmmaking.

Videofilmes Produçoes Artisticas Ltda. Screenwriter: João Moreira Salles. Cast: Santiago, Fernando Alves Pinto (narrator).

HDCam, b/w, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 80 min.