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Category Archives: Film
The Waltz of the Machines
Video by Grafikonstruct. Music by Lucas Lima. Factory by Paramount Textiles.
What Branches Grow?
Trailer for Lucy Walker’s Oscar-nominated documentary, Waste Land:
There’s a nice piece on GlobalPost that includes interviews with a couple of the ‘catadores’ (garbage pickers). Incredible stuff:
“I came here because of the money,” said Josue Santos, 42, who says he quit construction three years ago to do this. As he dragged a sofa-sized, 100-pound bag of smashed soda bottles under a hot sun, Santos explained the economics of chasing garbage trucks.
The prices of recyclables change weekly but, generally, a 100-pound bag of crushed plastic bottles sells for about $30, Santos said. On a good day a fast picker can gather as many as four or five bags worth of bottles, he said, but a worse day or a slower picker may produce just one. Santos said he works alongside his wife and young son and together they make between $400 and $600 per week.
Favela on Blast out now
You can finally get your grubby hands on Diplo & Leandro HBL’s baile funk movie Favela on Blast. You can download it for just $5 dollars, or get the awesome Brazilian Mad Decent t-shirt for a lil bit more. HERE!>
British Fail Institute
Bit of a weird one, this. London’s British Film Institute has always, in my experience, been one of the most interesting and forward-looking arts venues – and not even just for film – in the city.
Huge disappointment, then, to see the line-up for the Latin American film season coming up in August; the imaginatively-titled South American Renaissance. It’s not that City of God, Lower City, Bus 174, or Central Station are bad films – far from it, in fact. And both the Argentinian ‘documentary’ The Blondes and Peruvian fable Madeinusa are intriguing films, if ultimately pretty frustrating.
But it all just seems a bit… pointless. Yes, there appeared to be a kind of ‘renaissance’ of sorts around the millennium, out of which came some incredible movies, but in its wake has come a quite staggering amount of quality cinema that’s a lot less readily available to the average British cinema-goer than The Motorcycle Diaries (10th, 14th and 31st of August, if you were wondering).
A couple of months back, the Barbican’s Cinema of Brazil season brought another interesting, varied programme that focused on music in film in interesting ways. The BFI, on the other hand, seem to have put this upcoming season together in a terrible rush, using a couple of DVDs they borrowed from some friend, who used to go to the movies quite a bit back in about 2003, but has now got a serious job and a family and Just Doesn’t Have The Time to keep up any more.
The point, I suppose, is that it’s fine (of course) to Just Not Have The Time to keep up with all the new and exciting films coming out of Latin America unless you’re a national, publicly-funded film institute that’s about to run a Latin American film season, in which case it sort of is your job.
Time Lapse Brazil x Berlin
Very cool time-lapse video around Berlin, from Brazilian photographer Luis Veiga. He’s also done a similar film using images shot in his native land, which you can watch right about here.
The soundtrack isn’t really my cup of the proverbial tea, to be honest, but if you’re interested, the music is by a band called Brave The Elements.
Cadência
A little while back I posted up about Cadência, Daren Bartlett’s new film for Nike.
The film, which tries to get to the essence of Brazilian culture through looking at the rhythms of football, samba and pipa, is available to watch for free on the video-streaming site Babelgum.
I’ve just tried it out and I have to say I spent more time than I’d like trying to figure out which order to watch the sections in – before I realized that they’re all supposed to work as individual shorts. But the film is pleasant enough, and it’s always nice to hear Sócrates talk about pretty much anything.
Definitely worth checking out, but if you only watch one film on Babelgum this week then be sure to check the excellent graffiti doc Bomb It, which features Os Gêmeos and Nunca as well as international street artists like Shepard Fairey and Blek le Rat.
Favela on Blast is finally (nearly) here!
Diplo & Leandro HBL’s excellent Baile Funk documentary, Favela on Blast, is finally getting a full DVD and digital release via Mad Decent on July 20th. Plus, for a week from July 9th, you’ll be able to watch the whole thing online at pitchfork tv. About time, too.
→ Check Nossa’s interview with Diplo right hurrrr.
→ thanks to Drew Steenburg for the heads-up
The Irony
Dirty Money looks pretty good: it’s a documentary about Brazilian skate culture.
Apparently they’re not interested in sponsorship or any of that jazz – just making videos and having a good old time. Which is cool. Except that in the bottom corner of the film’s website it says “Patrocínio Cultural: Nike SB” which, for the lusophonically-challenged, means that it was sponsored by some sportswear company or other. Does that make the film’s title really ironic? Not sure. Looks like a fun movie though, still.
[via The Good Blood]
Ramadanman x Nike x Brazil
Don’t know what they’re putting in the water down at the Nike offices, but whatever it is, it seems to be working.
Cadência is a new film made for the brand by Daren Bartlett, director of the excellent capoeira doc O Zelador. It’s about the rhythm of Brazil, apparently, and visually it looks pretty stunning – thanks in part to some lovely animation by Jiwon Park.
A selection of Park’s stills from the film are being exhibited until the 25th of April at Nike’s new 1948 space (“part retail outlet, part creative playground”), alongside a purpose-made surround-sound installation from dubstep producer ramadanman. Which ought to be awesome.
ramadanman – reclaim
[via FACT}
