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Brazilian Retrospective Geraldo Sarno Films VIRAMUNDO Geraldo Sarno Brazil 40', B&W, 16mm, 1964/65 Portuguese speaking In five acts - the arrival, the work in the construction industry, the work in industry, the charity of religions, and the return - the film traces the path of the Northeastern migrant in search of his dream of making progress in the city of São Paulo. "Viramundo" is highlighted by the narrative of guitar-playing singers, and it breaks down the myth of the famanaz, from the cordel literature, the hero of the back country who, when leaving his homeland, becomes famous for his fabulous feats of work and effort of which he is capable. Reality doesn't always follow the myth. "The narration, the song, the scenes capture and surround the experiences lived by migrants from the standpoint of science and art - science and art (at least in terms of the scenes) that do not belong to their cultural universe, but interpret their existence in terms of cults. As for them, nothing else is asked, except that they live." (Jean-Claude Bernardet, in Moviemakers and Images of the People) MARCH 307:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 56:00 pmCCSP APRIL 66:00 pmCCSP APRIL 73:00 pmCCSP VIVA CARIRI! LONG LIVE CARIRI! Geraldo Sarno Brazil 37', COLOR, 16mm, 1969/70 Portuguese speaking An expanded social viewpoint of the Cariri region, in the State of Ceará, which is a fertile valley located at the confluence of the arid back country regions of five Northeastern States, in a collage of sounds and images that dismantles the traditional realistic and naturalistic narrative of the documentary. The film blends a portrayal of the economic activities of the region and of the religious manifestations of the worship of Father Cícero. The Cariri region, as the land of hope and salvation, as well as of myth, is a metaphorical synthesis of the back county. "Long Live Cariri!" is the image of that metaphor. "If I'm not mistaken, LONG LIVE CARIRI! was the first documentary to establish the break of the genre in the direction of fiction." (Geraldo Sarno) MARCH 307:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 56:00 pmCCSP APRIL 66:00 pmCCSP APRIL 73:00 pmCCSP SEGUNDA-FEIRA MONDAY Geraldo Sarno Brazil 12', COLOR, 35mm, 1975 Portuguese speaking The outdoor markets of the small towns of the back country are the weekly meeting place of the region's peasants and residents. There is not only the necessary economic exchange going on, but also the establishment of a social, cultural and mystical relationship. The dreams and myths evolve along side of the very few products of the land, which are put out for sale. In the midst of the merchandise, space is found for adventure, love, and art - everything done with neither excess nor waste. The exact measure is limited to what is necessary. "MONDAY is a documentary that is totally free of any commitment, except with the very life it is documenting, and with a poetry which is directly inspired by that same life. 'It's like a baião sung by Luiz Gonzaga', they told me." (Geraldo Sarno) APRIL 54:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 78:00 pmCCSP APRIL 83:00 pmCCSP APRIL 88:00 pmCCSP IAÔ Brazil 70', COLOR/ B&W, 16mm, 1976 Portuguese speaking The film was shot in the home of Mãe Filhinha, in Cachoeira, in Bahia's Recôncavo Region, and it documents the initiation into the worship of the orixás. As the second of a series begun by "Sacred Space" (1976), "Iaô" shows images of traditional worship in a gege-nagô community and highlights the integrative and cultural strength role of these manifestations. "Some want to see, between IAÔ and VIRAMUNDO, the slow and mature path of the documentarist - from a film that is aggressively ideological to one that gives way to an understanding of the manifestations where, as a rule, firm ideological stances are not expected to be found. Nothing could be further from the truth. The project that resulted, later, in IAÔ had been in existence since 1965 - and ever since then had been fated to be the counterpart of VIRAMUNDO in documenting the Afro-Brazilian religions which, like all human phenomena, do not play a single and exclusive role in the life of the societies." (Geraldo Sarno) APRIL 54:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 78:00 pmCCSP APRIL 83:00 pmCCSP APRIL 88:00 pmCCSP A TERRA QUEIMA THE EARTH BURNS Geraldo Sarno Brazil 55', COLOR, 16mm, 1984 Portuguese speaking "The Earth Burns" sets up an immediate dialog with "Viramundo" - despite the two decades which separate the two films. The documentarist searches for the reasons why the people leave the back country. Filmed at the close of four straight years of drought in the Northeast, "The Earth Burns" is a social document, in the tradition of the documentaries loaded with feelings of indignation and revulsion. "An admirable film by Geraldo Sarno, produced by Canada's National Film Board, 'The Earth Burns' is an audiovisual x-ray of the situation in the Brazilian Northeast after five years of drought. The lack of water, the lack of food, the lack of jobs (with no unemployment insurance), the community work, the infant mortality… In images that are as beautiful as they are unbearable, of a solid truth." (Sylvie Pierre) APRIL 44:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 63:00 pmCCSP APRIL 68:00 pmCCSP DEUS É UM FOGO GOD IS A FIRE Geraldo Sarno Brazil 80', COLOR, 16mm, 1987 Portuguese speaking A pure documentary camera record, with almost no editing interference, about the Liberation Theology movement. A documentary of crisis, of depletion: its first image - an Indian man playing a harp on the cliffs of the Andes - seems to lead, with a funeral song, the social movements in Latin America, and the Liberation Theology movement itself, which is already fading at the time of the filming. "The last scenes of the film 'God is a Fire' have unforgettable mystical and esthetic beauty. This is where Sarno is at his best, with his profound intuitiveness. (...) These are forms of divine transparency and of a meaning that gives wholeness to existence. Sarno insinuates that this is the direction in which we must go to find the true meaning of any and all wholly liberating process, to create the marriage of heaven and earth, of human beings and transcendence, of inner archeology and outer cosmology." (Brother Leonardo Boff) APRIL 34:00 pmCASA FRANÇA-BRASIL APRIL 53:00 pmCCSP APRIL 58:00 pmCCSP APRIL 86:00 pmCCSP