Special Sessions
Cultures of Resistance
2011, 73min
Director: Iara Lee
Producer: George Gund
Associate Producers: Sergei Krasikau, Claude Ibrahmioff, Pranav Behari, Mark Engler, Arthur Phillips
Cinematographers: David Ross Smith, Altair Paixao, Rami Kodeih, Diego Forero
Editor: Jeff Marcello
Co-Editors: Nathaniel M Cunningham, Collin Ruffino
Som: Cory Choy
Sinopsis
In 2003, on the eve of the Irak War, acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker Iara Lee embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict and, as she saw it, heading for self-destruction. After several years, traveling over five continents, she encountered growing numbers of people who committed their lives to promoting change. From Iran, where graffiti and rap became tools in fighting government repression, moving on to Brazil, where musicians reach out to slum kids and transform guns into guitars, and ending in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, where photography, music and film have given voice to those rarely heard, “Cultures of Resistance” explores how art and creativity can be ammunition in the battle for peace and justice.
Iara Lee
Iara Lee is a Brazilian activist and filmmaker currently working on a variety of initiatives under the umbrella of CULTURES OF RESISTANCE, including a feature-length documentary film with the same title presented in FIKE 2011, which explores how creative action contributes to conflict prevention and resolution. From 1984 to 1989 she was the producer of the São Paulo International Film Festival. From 1989 to 2003 she was based in New York City, where she ran the mixed-media company Caipirinha Productions to explore the synergy of different art forms. In May 2010, she was traveling in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla which was attacked in international waters by the Israeli navy.
No País das Amazonas
The concert film project is a result of the passions for cinema and musical composition shared by guitarist Nuno Costa and pianist Óscar Graça. Together, they have developed many projects since 2005, collaborating with various video and multimedia directors and producers. Based on films generally considered landmarks in cinema, this project leads to the live performance of a soundtrack composed for the silent movie to be exhibited. With the help of some of the most modern methods of musical performance, they create different sound elements and environments, with the aim of giving a “voice” to the powerful emotions channeled by the images.
Silvino Santos was born in Cernache do Bonjardim (Portugal) in 1886, and died in Manaus (Brazil) in 1970. At the age of fourteen, he travelled to Brazil, and started working as an assistant photographer in Belém do Pará.
In the context of one of the most flourishing towns in the world in the early 20th century, Silvino Santos established himself as a professional photographer, attracting the preference of the powerful barons of caoutchouc, still a monopoly of the Amazon forest region.
Júlio Cezar Araña, a wealthy trader, ran one of the rubber companies, the Peruvian Amazon Co. Faced with the serious allegations of an American missionary, W. E. Hardenburg, who accused him of enslaving and murdering natives, Araña decided to use cinema, a novelty at the time, as part of the evidence he wanted to submit to his English associates and to a UK parliamentary committee, in London.
Araña sent the young Silvino to Paris, to get acquainted with the new filming techniques in Pathé’s and in the Lumière brothers’ laboratory. That’s how the adventurous Silvino Santos entered the world of cinema and the secrets of the world’s largest forest, filming Araña’s rubber plantations. 
This 1912 film, unfortunately lost, represented the beginning of an intense activity of documentary production, mostly unknown nowadays. Silvino Santo’s work attracted much curiosity, not just because he was the first filmmaker to disclose to wide audiences the secrets of Amazonia but also because of his original approach to cinema.
In that phase of his career, Silvino Santos was already working under the protection of commendator Joaquim Gonçalves de Araújo, who had acquired all the assets of the ruined Amazônia Cine Film, the first film production company ever to be settled in Amazonia. J.G. Araújo would remain Silvino Santos’s employer along most of his life.
Up to the thirties, Silvino Santos’ production was intense and continuous, including a joint effort with American geographer and explorer Alexander Hamilton Rice, Jr. during his expedition to the Amazon River. “No Rasto do El-Dorado” was the first documentary film to include air views of the Amazon River, while recording the cartographic expedition to the largest river in the world.
Altogether, Silvino Santos made 8 full length documentary films, 5 medium length ones and 83 short ones, besides a series of homemade films about the daily life of the Araújo family, including a few made in Portugal.
The pioneer of documentary film in Amazonia will not film anymore. Silvino Santos and his work faded out in oblivion. Fragments of his films have been used without creditation.
In the sixties, in Manaus, some students and intelectuals with a strong interest in cinema created the GEC (Grupo de Estudos Cinematográficos/ Film Studies Group). In 1969, the GEC organised the first Festival do Norte do Cinema Brasileiro, bestowing on Silvino Santos the only prize in his career.
“No Paíz das Amazonas” was the first full length documentary film to take to Europe and the civilized world of that era a portrait of the enchanted universe of the Great Forest, and also a record of the activities carried out in the jungle and on the river, almost a saga or an adventure movie of uncommon beauty and great documental interest. The film was used to represent the Northern states of Brazil in the exhibition held in Rio to celebrate the centenary of the country’s independence, later shown in Paris and other European capitals.
Now, celebrating the 125th anniversary of Silvino Santo’s birth and the 10th anniversary of FIKE, musicians Nuno Costa and Óscar Graça were invited to write and perform a new soundtrack for “No Paíz das Amazonas”.
Guitarist Nuno Costa started his music studies in the Academia de Amadores de Música in 1998. Later he received a grant to finish his studies in the Berklee College of Music, where he completed the Film Scoring course in 2005. Currently, he teaches in the Jazz school of the Hot Clube de Lisboa and in the Escola de Jazz do Barreiro. He has directed various projects of music for images, and is an active member of the Portuguese Jazz scene.
Pianist Óscar Graça began musical studies at the age of six. He graduated in Composition at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, followed a complementary piano course in the Conservatório de Música de Aveiro, and attended classes in the Escola de Jazz do Porto, Hot Clube de Lisboa and Berklee College of Music. He started teaching in 2000, and presently lectures at the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa and the Jazz school of Hot Club de Lisboa.
October 18th to 30th, 2011
FIKE 2011 - 10th International Short Film Festival
Páteo do Salema, n.º 7 - A
7000 - 818 Évora
PORTUGAL
Tel./Fax: +351 266 703 137
Tlm: +351 927 863 047
e-mail: fike@fikeonline.net
