CINEMA-BRAZIL: Women Take Over

By Mario Osava Reprint | | Print |

Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 30 1996 (IPS) - More and more women enter the world Brazilian cinema, which until recently was almost entirely controlled by men.

Best known among the new generation of female directors is Carla Camurati, who scored a big hit with ‘Carlota Joaquina, Princess of Brazil’ which last year attracted more than a million viewers in Brazil. Before she turned to directing, Camurati was a popular movie and soap opera actress.

But Camurati has many lesser-known colleagues, including Daniela Thomas, who with Walter Salles co-directed ‘Tierra Extranjera’ (Foreign Lands), a movie about Brazilians living abroad for economic reasons, and Monique Gardenberg, the director of ‘Jenipapo’, which deals with Brazilian land conflicts. Both these movies featured at Robert Redford’s Sundance Festival in the United States.

During the golden age of Brazilian cinema in the 1970s, only two women directed feature length films, Ana Carolina Soares and Tizuka Yamasaki (the daughter of Japanese immigrants). The only woman to join them in the following decade was Suzana Amaral, creator of ‘Hora de la Estrella’ (Hour of the Star).

Now, many new women directors are emerging with finished films or works in progress. Some of them have previous experience making non-commercial short films or documentaries and others, like Camurati, are actresses who decided to try the view from the other side of the camera.

Norma Bengell, a star of the “cinema novo” in the 1960s, is one of these actresses-turned-directors, having just finished making ‘The Guarani’, an epic film about an Indian man and a white woman set in early colonial days. Actors like Betty Faria and Ana Maria Magalhaes plan to follow her footsteps.

Eunice Gutman, a director of award-winning documentaries and mid-length films, has also joined the rush of women into the Brazilian commercial cinema and is preparing to make her first fictional full-length movie.

Gutman recalled that the dearth of women directors 20 years ago was not just a Brazilian but a worldwide phenomenon, adding that “the changes we see today is a reflection of the feminist struggle in recent decades”.

The film maker, a longtime feminist, hailed the new movement as “fantastic”, something “that will make many people think in a new way” and develop another vision of the nation and the different aspects of life.

The feminine perspective on the nation, revealing a distinct vision and sensibility, can already be seen in a growing number of movies. These often cast women in central roles to illuminate Brazilian history in new ways. (MORE)

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