Based in Porto Alegre, filmmaker Jorge Furtado (b.1959) is a beloved figure in Brazil. His work displays amazing range, from coming-of-age stories to animated critiques of capitalism to playful historical recreation to bitter tales of racism in Brazil to shaggy dog stories to neo-noir. Even within a film, Furtado is able to cover a lot of ground, jumbling genres as joyfully as he mixes together characters from all parts of Porto Alegre's eclectic citizenry. What ties it all together is Furtado's unceasing interest in playing with the cinematic construction of time and narrative. He is a master at setting up expectations and then upending those expectations, or bypassing them entirely, in ways that are both witty and illuminating. One of his favored methods is the collage, betraying a syncretic impulse that ties him to other Brazilian exponents of the modern and the postmodern, from Carlos Drummond de Andrade to Tom Zé.
A first glance at Furtado's work can miss the subtle ways in which his intellect is at work on screen, although his big-hearted sympathy for his characters is unmistakable. A knowledge
of Furtado's shorts goes a long way towards alerting an audience to his subversive intelligence, an intelligence not far removed from the subversions of such musical
tropicalistas as Os Mutantes and Caetano Veloso.
Special thanks to Brad Epps, Clémence Jouet-Pastré, the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Global Outreach and Attention Span Media, and Clarissa Willrich and Casa
de Cinema de Porto Alegre.
Special Event Tickets $10
Friday March 7 at 7pm
The Man Who Copied (O Homem Que Copiava)Directed by Jorge Furtado, Appearing in Person
With Lázaro Ramos, Leandra Leal
Brazil 2003, 35mm, color, 123 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
A young man in a dead-end job drifts toward a life of
crime. The
storyline could come from any one of a number
of Amerindie films, but it doesn't begin to capture this
film's inventiveness, its attention to race and class, its
irony and its subtle but incisive critique of consumerism.
The plot itself drifts from genre to genre, encompassing
Hitchcockian psychodrama, romantic comedy and neonoir.
Furtado's deployment of point of view and voiceover
betray the formal invention at work beneath the surface.
Listen to this evening's discussion and Q&A.
Special Event Tickets $10
Saturday March 8 at 3pm
Storm (Temporal)Directed by Jorge Furtado and José Pedro Goulart.
Brazil 1984, video, color, 9 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
This playful reworking of the horror film portrays the
members of a conservative organization as the "normals"
threatened by "monsters:" horny teenagers looking to party.
The Day Dorival Faced the Guards (O Dia em Que Dorival Encarou a Guarda)Directed by Jorge Furtado and José Pedro Goulart.
Brazil 1986, video, color, 14 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
When a prisoner demands a shower, the standoff between
him and the guards quickly becomes a tragicomic example
of the workings of power and race in Brazil in a microcosm.
The tale is also an existential parable about getting
what you want, at any cost.
Island of Flowers (Ilha das Flores)Directed by Jorge Furtado.
Brazil 1989, video, color, 12 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
This stunning documentary coolly explains the cruelties of
capitalism.
An updating of Buñuel's Land Without Bread augmented with animation recalling Monty Python-era
Terry Gilliam.
The Killing Machine (A Matadeira)Directed by Jorge Furtado.
Brazil 1994, video, color, 16 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
This tale of the peasant uprising in Bahia at the end of the
nineteenth century is an excellent example of Furtado's
play with genre – in this case, the documentary and the
period film – and his use of deadpan irony in the face of
violence and cruelty.
Look Closely (Veja Bem)Directed by Jorge Furtado.
Brazil 1994, video, color, 9 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
This playfully experimental video piece is Furtado's tip of
the hat to that hallmark of Brazilian modernism,
concrete poetry.
Angelo is Missing (Angelo Anda Sumido)Directed by Jorge Furtado.
Brazil 1997, video, color, 17 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
This shaggy-dog version of The Lady Vanishes takes a
comic look at
a serious problem: the fragmentation of
urban space as an inadequate response to poverty and
crime, and the alienation that results from such solutions.
The Sandwich (O Sanduiche)Directed by Jorge Furtado.
Brazil 2000, 35mm, color, 13 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
Furtado's endlessly creative play with narrative gives this short the form of a set of nesting dolls. A woman makes a man a sandwich, and the film unravels from there.
Special Event Tickets $10
Saturday March 8 at 7pm
Directed by Jorge Furtado, Appearing in Person
With Alicia Braga
Brazil 2007, video, color, 12 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
Two feuding families battle it out through endless games of Rummikub. Meanwhile, a pair of lovers forms, à la Romeo and Juliet. Furtado’s most recent short stars Alicia Braga, from City of God, who is currently acting in American films, including David Mamet’s new Redbelt.
Two Summers (Houve Uma Vez Dois Verões)Directed by Jorge Furtado, Appearing in Person
With André Arteche, Ana Maria Mainieri
Brazil 2002, 35mm, color, 75 min.
Portuguese with English subtitles
Two Summers starts like a typical teen comedy, with two horny adolescent males plotting, somewhat awkwardly, to meet girls while at the beach on vacation. One of the two friends, Chico, actually manages to lose his virginity to a somewhat older young woman who then disappears. When she resurfaces, Chico is suddenly faced with the consequences of his fling. From a simple story, Furtado crafts an absorbing drama on sexual ethics, gender and class in contemporary Brazil.
Listen to this evening's discussion and Q&A.
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