Ironically, the big winner of the 13th It's All True International Documentary Film Festival, Pan-Cinema Permanente directed by Carlos Nader, features a subject that declares, "I don't need truths! Just lies. Essential lies." That pretty much sums up poet Waly Salomão's over-the-top attitude in this film that is a loving portrait made by a dear friend. Salomão was an excessive personality who made life a performance.

As someone who had never heard of Salomão before watching this film, there are two scenes that I remember very fondly. One is footage of an interview Salomão gave on Syrian television. (Salomão's father was Syrian and he goes to the fatherland to reconnect with his relatives there.) The calm, polished demeanor of the interviewer plays at perfect odds with Salomão's eccentricity, to revealing and hilarious effect.

The other scene is a confession by the director that Salomão simply never let his guard down for the camera. The only glimpse we have of him relaxed is when he is sleeping, but even that footage is not as straight-forward as it should be. Opaque in every way, Salomão actively creates and projects his own image throughout the film.

What I loved about Pan-Cinema Permanente was that Nader lets Salomão have center stage while not one-upping him. The editing is quick and playful and the visuals, full of color, are approached in surprising ways. Watching Salomão's endless energy can feel a bit exhausting at times, but the impact of his art and life on those around him must have been a wonderful thing.

I had the privilege of being involved with the 13th It's All True Documentary Film Festival, which took place in São Paulo from March 26 to April 6. The guest of honor was prolific Danish filmmaker Jørgen Leth, who many know solely as Lars von Trier's adversary in The Five Obstructions, but has had long and varied careers as poet and director of (primarily) documentary films for over 40 years.

For a variety of reasons, many directors who visit São Paulo are usually intimidated by the sprawl of the city and/or are a bit paranoid about their safety - but that was not the case with Jørgen, as he has lived in Haiti for 20 years! He had also already been to Brazil before, filming scenes for his 1986 doc Moments of Play (complete with a musical score by his hero Tom Jobim).

This time around, Jørgen is in Brazil to film what he considers one of his most challenging projects yet: a documentary called The Erotic Human. It's a project he's been working on for years, and he confessed that he considered abandoning it in the heat of a scandal that involved his published memoirs in Denmark in 2005. Since then, with the encouragement of his producer Lars von Trier (who seems to have gotten over his Oedipal complex and does not want to destroy his mentor anymore... at least for the time being), Jørgen has once again taken up the project and is currently filming in Manaus (in the Amazon) with his cameraman and long-time collaborator Dan Holmberg. I'm pretty curious to see what will result.

Below is the famous "My name is Andy Warhol and I just ate a hamburger" scene from Jørgen's 66 Scenes from America.

It's finally official: Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles and based on the book by José Saramago, will open Cannes. A lot of us who work with film in São Paulo were pretty shocked when the film didn't make the competition lineup as it seemed like a shoe-in, but the possibility of it scoring the coveted opening night slot hadn't even occurred to me!

With the combined pedigree of the director, cast (including Julianne Moore, Danny Glover, Gael García Bernal, and Mark Ruffalo), and source material, expectations for this one are high. It's O2 Filmes' biggest production yet and media attention since filming in São Paulo last year has been intense.

For those of you who read Portuguese, Fernando Meirelles has been keeping a blog about his experiences with the movie. I found this part interesting, where he explains that Miramax had reservations about the intensity of the cut he screened for them (translation mine):

"By contract, the final cut is mine, but these guys know what they're talking about and I took advantage of their expertise and my disposition to rethink once again the editing. I thought they were hypersensitive to the scenes of sexual violence and I didn't pay too much attention to their comments. Not one friend in Brazil had mentioned this problem. North Americans are more moralistic, I generalized. But nevertheless, as a good neighbor policy, I decided to lessen a little the film's voltage. A little."

By the way, you can see the movie's oddly-paced (in my opinion) trailer below:

Catching up (a little) on blogging... ResFest's 10th edition came and went, marking its first year at the Cinemateca Brasileira's new location in the Vila Mariana neighborhood. While it's hard to reach the place without a car (I never learned how to drive one anyway), getting there is worth the effort -- the venue is incredible, by far the most comfortable theater in the city for the cultural frenzy of a film festival. After hearing an appropriately bossa nova-themed set from ex-Cibo Matto singer Miho Hatori, I caught a session of surprisingly strong Brazilian shorts, the highlight of which (for me) was Paulo Caruso's "Alphaville d.c. 2007". The film focuses on a French-speaking cowboy (his name: "I am the third person plural. I am they.") who avenges the Third World in an infamous gated community outside of São Paulo. Bizarrely philosophical and often hilarious, it's great experimental filmmaking that manages a scathing social commentary without sacrificing entertainment.

The 12th International Documentary Film Festival It's All True (É Tudo Verdade), has announced the seven titles that will comprise its Brazilian Competition section, with the winner taking a prize of R$100,000. The fest kicks off on March 22 in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro before touring to other cities. The feature-length competition titles are: Construção (directed by Cristiano Burlan, about civil construction workers in São Paulo), Descaminhos (directed by various), Elevado 3.5 (directed by João Sodré, Maíra Bühler, and Paulo Pastorelo; about the infamous elevated highway constructed in a densely populated neighborhood in São Paulo), Lutzenberger: For Ever Gaia (directed by Frank Coe and Otto Guerra; centering on ecologist José Lutzenberger's views on development and environmentalism), Maria Bethânia - Pedrinha de Aruanda (directed by Andrucha Waddington; a portrait of the famous Brazilian singer by the director of House of Sand), Nas Terras do Bem-Virá (directed by Alexandre Rampazzo; a history of the Amazon from the 1970s to present day), and O Longo Amanhecer - Cinebiografia de Celso Furtado (directed by José Mariani). The Brazilian short competition is comprised of eight titles, and an additional 11 Brazilian productions were chosen for other sections of the festival.

This will be my first opportunity to check out the festival, as I was out of the country for last year's edition. The festival's English-language site has not yet been updated with the Brazilian competition, but Folha de São Paulo has some further information. It's already been confirmed that at least a dozen films will show in a Krzyzstof Kieslowski retrospective along with some current American favorites such as Iraq In Fragments and Jesus Camp, but we'll have to wait until March 9 for the complete program...

Two Brazilian films have been selected for Sundance 2007: O Cheiro do Ralo ("Drained"), directed by Heitor Dhalia, and the documentary Acidente, directed by Cao Guimarães and Pablo Lobato. I've seen O Cheiro do Ralo and it's easy to imagine this film playing at Sundance... basically because it was so obviously influenced by American independent film. (Dhalia has said himself that this was his intention.) But what truly gives this film its "indie" badge is the fact that it was made with practically no sponsors and no investors, with the cast and crew working for nothing. With a smart marketing campaign combining guerrilla tactics and festival prestige, besides the fact that it is based on a graphic novel, O Cheiro do Ralo has the makings of a nicely popular cult film. For me, memorable and often hilarious performances from Selton Mello and Silvia Lourenço are what made the movie worth watching.

Last night marked the beginning of the 2nd Veneza Cinema Italiano, a program of seven Italian films recently shown at the Venice Film Festival and sponsored by the Italian Embassy. A few of the films, like Nuovomondo and Lettere dal sahara were already shown a month ago in the Mostra International de Cinema de São Paulo, but the rest will be making their Brazilian premieres.

I loved Nuovomondo so much in the Mostra that I will try to catch it again as part of this Italian program. Unfortunately, I wasn't as crazy about the opening night film La stella che non c'è. The basic plot follows an Italian businessman on his confusing trip throughout China while he establishes a rocky friendship with a local woman, but the story more closely resembles material from a textbook called "An Introduction to Modern China" than an actual film. The stilted dialogue serves for little besides wide generalizations and a "these people are different, but they are still people" sort of cliché. The film's greatest problem is that it relies entirely on the exotic and mysterious beauty of China to enchant us like it has its protagonist (who filters everything for us, the intended Western audience) -- forget a convincing script or believable characters! Yes, China is fascinating, and yes, it is incredibly diverse, but that doesn't make an interesting movie. Another recent film, Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, covered similar themes in a less condescending and far more entertaining way.

Mix Brasil wrapped in São Paulo last night. Despite the fact that a freak storm scared many people from going out (power went out and trees fell), the closing night party at Glória was packed with festival supporters who celebrated the end of a busy 10 days of films and parties. (For more information on the festival, check out my article on indieWIRE.)

The winners of the Silver Rabbit awards were announced between showings of 5 student films produced by a 5-week workshop sponsored by Mix, followed by drag shows. I have to say that one of them was probably the best Tina Turner impersonation I'll ever see in my life.

The big Brazilian winner of the night was the documentary As Filhas de Chiquita, which was produced with no sponsors or investors, yet has impressively high production values. The film was shown as part of the Mostra Competitiva Brasil. It also participated in the special Transbrasil showcase of the festival.

Winners:

Best Brazilian Short (audience vote)
As Filhas de Chiquita
Best Foreign Short (audience vote)
Gnomo

Best Documentary (jury)
Gender X
Best Feature (jury)
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Best Brazilian Film (jury)
O Amor do Palhaço
Honorable Mention (jury)
As Filhas de Chiquita

Porta Curtas Award
Meu Namorado é Michê
Ida Felman Award
Kaká di Poly

Prize winners of the Mostra Internacional de Cinema were announced last night. This is only the second time in the history of the Mostra that a Brazilian film (Drained) has taken the top award, the Bandeira Paulista. In its 30th year, the Mostra had an audience of 220,000 spectators (up from 200,000 last year) in 19 locations and 14 days of programming (+7 more days this coming week). A grand total of 420 films from 44 countries were shown: 292 features, 99 shorts, and 29 medium-lengths.

Jury Award -- Best Film:
Drained, by Heitor Dhalia (Brazil)

Special Jury Award:
El Violino, by Francisco Vargas (Mexico)
with special mention of actor Don Angel Tavira

Jury Award -- Best Actor:
Adel Imam, in The Yacoubian Building (Egypt)

Jury Award -- Best Actress:
Maria Lundqvist, in Mother of Mine (Finland)

Jury Award -- Honorable Mention:
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, by Cao Hamburguer (Brazil)
"For its visual realization and for its capacity not just to create a period atmosphere, but also to translate the collective sentiment of that period“

Prêmio Petrobras Cultural de Difusão – Best Brazilian Fiction Feature
(audience vote) – R$ 400,000 for distribution:
Antonia, by Tata Amaral (R$ 200,000)
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, by Cao Hamburguer (R$ 200,000)

Prêmio Petrobras Cultural de Difusão – Best Brazilian Documentary
(audience vote) – R$ 200,000 for distribution:
Fabricando Tom Zé, by Décio Matos Jr.

Audience Award -- Best Brazilian Short:
Primeira Vez, by Fabrício Bittar

Audience Award -- Best Brazilian Medium-Length:
Deus e o diabo em cima da muralha, by Tocha Alves and Daniel Lieff

Audience Award -- Best Foreign Fiction Feature:
Rosso Come il Cielo, by Cristiano Bortone (Italy)

Audience Award -- Best Foreign Documentary:
An Inconvenient Truth, by Davis Guggenheim (USA)

Audience Award -- Best Foreign Short:
I Want to Be a Pilot, by Diego Quemada-Diez (Kenya/Mexico/Spain)

Audience Award -- Best Foreign Mid-Length:
Jana Sanskriti, a Theater on the Field, by Jeanne Dosse (France)

Critics Award -- International Category:
Hamaca Paraguaya, by Paz Encina (Paraguay/France/Argentina/Holland)
"For its daring in approaching the passage of time, human relations, and reflections on life and death in a unique and simple way"

Critics Award -- National Category:
Drained, by Heitor Dhalia
"For joining a delicate black humor with psychological and social reflections, among others"

Youth Award (votes from high school students in the Festival da Juventude section):
Mother of Mine, by Klaus Harö (Finland)

Humanity Award:
Vittorio de Seta, Italian director of Banditi A Orgosolo (1961) and Lettere dal Sahara (2006), honored guest of the 30th Mostra

Thursday is the first of three November holidays in São Paulo, and I'll be travelling tomorrow night for some much-needed relaxation. The Mostra prize winners will be announced on Thursday night along with a screening of a restored copy of the 1969 classic Macunaíma directed by Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, one of Cinema Novo's most celebrated directors who is being honored this year with a retrospective. From the Mostra's tribute:

"Macunaíma innovated on the aesthetics of Cinema Novo, incorporating elements of slapstick comedy and transfiguring facts from political life that permeate the epic description of Macunaíma's wanderings among figures from popular mythology. An emblematic film from the late sixties, the film brough a heritage of modernism up to and established a much desired link between Cinema Novo and the public."

High praise. I'm excited about finally having a chance to see this classic that everyone here seems to love -- fortunately, the restored copy will be released here theatrically.

My short mid-fest report on the Mostra is up on indieWIRE: "At 30 Years, the São Paulo International Film Festival Celebrates Its Legacy." Be sure to check back here to see who took the top prizes on Thursday night.

The 14 films that received the highest votes from the public after the first week of the Mostra are then passed on to the jury to choose the winner of the festival's top prize, the Bandeira Paulista. Juror Bahman Gohbadi expressed concerns about this rather unorthodox system at a press conference on Saturday, claiming that audience votes are problematic, and I tend to agree with him -- films that please the largest amount of people tend to be bland. Another interesting criterion for the jury is that only new directors (having made up to two features) are considered, forcing celebrity directors like Pedro Almodóvar and Ken Loach to make way for new blood. In any case, the audiences have made some surprising selections for the 14 eligible films:

Äideistä Parhain (Mother of Mine), Finland, directed by Klaus Härö
Amu, U.S./India, directed by Shonali Bose
Anche Libero va Bene, Italy, directed by Kim Rossi Stuart
Aupa Etxebeste!, Spain, directed by Asier Altuna and Telmo Esnal
El Violin, Mexico, directed by Francisco Vargas
Hadvarim Shemehahorei Hashemesh (Things Behind the Sun), Israel, directed by Yuval Shafferman
Noel - Poeta da Vida, Brazil, directed by Ricardo van Steen
Nuit Noire, France, directed by Alain Tasma
O Ano Em Que Meus Pais Saíram De Férias, Brazil, directed by Cao Hamburger
O Cheiro do Ralo (Drained), Brazil, directed by Heitor Dhalia
Omaret Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building), Egypt, directed by Marwan Hamed
Os 12 Trabalhos, Brazil, directed by Ricardo Elias
Que Tan Lejos, Ecuador, directed by Tania Hermida
Shortbus, U.S., directed by John Cameron Mitchell

A few films may change depending on voting in the second week, but this is more or less the roster. Critics are also free to choose (independently from audience selections) their own favorites of the festival. If the finalists for the jury were up to me, I'd switch Karim Aïnouz's O Céu de Suely with The Yacoubian Building in a heartbeat!

Speaking of festival favorites, my highlights of the first week have been (in no particular order): Nuovomondo, Offside, Hamaca Paraguaya, Pan's Labyrinth, Half Nelson, Be With Me, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone, and O Céu de Suely.

Let me start with a compliment: Time by Kim Ki-Duk is not mediocre, and I appreciate that in a movie. That being said, the plot is ridiculous and the characters despicable. It's over the top in a bad way.

Seh-hee/See-hee is so afraid of losing her boyfriend, Ji-woo, to another woman that she abandons him and completely transforms her face through plastic surgery. Six months later, she re-emerges to seduce Ji-woo as a different woman. What follows is a mind game that becomes increasingly twisted, and Seh-hee/See-hee ultimately gets a taste of her own medicine, living in a hell of dramatic and irreversible plastic surgery. Ji-woo, helplessly in love, goes to desperate measures to save their relationship (though I don't know why he bothered as it's an absolute disaster) and the results are ugly.

The most off-putting element in Time is that the women are psycopathic freaks who are clearly an object of hate and mistrust. It comes off as very misogynistic. By the end of the film Seh-hee/See-hee eventually learns her lesson, but the subject is handled in such a degrading way that it's hard to care. There's a lot of wasted potential in the concept of using plastic surgery to erase one's identity.

It's Day 4 of the Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo and I'm sad to say that I haven't been in love with anything I've seen (and yes, I saw Volver) -- until I saw Be With Me today. I thought the wordless romances of the first act were interesting and at times amusing, but it was the emergence of Theresa Chan -- a real-life woman who became blind and deaf as a teenager -- who framed the movie's sentimentality in an utterly profound way. Her story alone would be more than enough material for a compelling documentary, yet I found the fictional content provided a rewarding counterpoint to Theresa's story. Theresa, with all her handicaps, communicates better than the world around her.

I'm looking forward to seeing Pan's Labyrinth tonight, though I have to admit that the movie I'm most excited to see, out of the hundreds of films that will play until November 2, is definitely Syndromes and a Century...

Ilustrada no Cinema, Folha de São Paulo's new blog dedicated to film, premiered today to coincide with the opening of the "most important cinematic event in the country," the 30th Mostra Internacional de Cinema (São Paulo International Film Festival). Festival directors Leon Cakoff and Renata de Almeida give their picks for the over 400 films showing at the event, and I'll be spending the next several days happily locked in movie theaters.

El Desenlace, directed by Juan Pinzás, screened today for journalists at the Unibanco Arteplex and will play at the Mostra Internacional. It's Dogme-certified (#31), and while the film has the dense dialogue and no-frills approach you might expect, the skeletons inevitably dragged out of the characters' closets are so fabulous that I often forgot I was watching a Dogme film. Its sense of humor softened such a typically confrontational aesthetic with great success (not to mention the colors looked great -- congrats to cinematographers Gerardo Moschioni and Tote Trenas).

The premise of El Desenlace is ostensibly about a group meeting at a hotel to discuss the production of a new movie, to be adapted by a vain producer, a machista director, and his troubled girlfriend from a novel by a closeted writer. Along for the ride are an ageing reporter with big breast implants and a bitter gay magazine editor, but the film adaptation in question is really just a thin excuse for the characters to attack each other in a variety of absurd fashions. A mysterious parapalegic haunts the hallways while we learn that one of the protagonists is really a female Oedipus, amidst plenty of back-stabbing and bed-hopping.

Such melodrama saves El Desenlace from feeling like a sadistic actors' workshop, and while the characters are at times too brutal (and the justifications for their behavior bit too tedious), the film thankfully knows not to take itself too seriously. It's a perfect marriage -- the raw, handheld Dogme approach combined with the camp of a soap opera, giving the story a freshness that kept me curious and entertained.

I always find it odd when festivals with a mission to promote both their host city and their local filmmaking culture -- like the upcoming Festival do Rio -- give their opening and closing night slots to Hollywood films (The Black Dahlia and The Departed, respectively). Oh well! I won't be making it to Rio de Janeiro since São Paulo tends to show a very similar program a month later, and I imagine I would have a hard time focusing on the movies while I could be spending time on the beach. (And if I must take a side in the traditional SP/Rio rivalry, SP is my obvious choice.) Maybe next year?