Esmir Filho

His first project was Ato II Cena 5, conceived within the cinema department of the FAAP (Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado), where the director believes he got his “first contacts, which made it possible to follow a career in cinema”. Indeed, this short film, which investigates the languages of cinema and theatre, was co-directed with a friend, young director Rafael Gomes - with whom Esmir also directed the video Tapa na Pantera, a big Internet success seen by more than ten thousand people on YouTube.

He kept on experimenting, undertaking small exercises in genre such as Vibracall (in which a story is told without dialogues or conflicts, based on the suggestive power of a cellphone’s vibration setting) and an incursion into the universe of fables and musicals with award-winner Ímpar Par, which follows the idea that “every shoe has its pair”, meaning “everyone has a soulmate”. He explains his taste for the universe of fantasy: “I always liked to create stories and wrote short novels during my teenage years. This passion grew stronger when I discovered cinema in my youth. One film that particularly shocked me was Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, maybe the first art film I ever watched. Then I chose to study cinema at college, to be able to transform my written words into images.”

Two other short films helped consolidate his career: Alguma Coisa Assim, winner of best screenplay at the Cannes film festival, and Saliva, presented in the same festival and winner of best director in the Brazilian festival of Gramado. Both of these films focus on adolescence, the first discussing the discovery of (homo)sexuality, and the second, the excitement of the first kiss. “I feel strongly connected to the universe of teenagers, because that’s the time when we discover lots of things about ourselves and learn to deal with our desires and hidden feelings. I’m very interested in the rites of passage: exploring the mind of a child or a teenager, revealing their most intimate wishes, exposing their fragility… always in a poetic and metaphorical way.”

His feature film The Famous and the Dead comes from this choice of approaching youth in a metaphorical way. It tells the story of a teenage boy in the south of Brazil who is experiencing the difficulties of his burgeoning sexuality and the loss of his father. Difficulties which compell him to seek for an escape through various means: the Internet, a relationship with a mysterious girl, the songs of Bob Dylan, and even suicide, a theme that constantly haunts the narrative. No more playful joy as in Vibracall and Ímpar Par: now the scenario is melancholic, dark and dominated by a strong difficulty to communicate.

The press office in charge of this film has announced that it represents “a new refreshing side of Brazil, far removed from the caricatures, the favelas, crime and samba music". When asked about such a particular way of exposing his work, Esmir gives us a straight answer: “[These themes] just don’t interest me right now. Brazil is a very big country, with lots of stories to tell. The traditions and cultures from the many parts of Brazil are very different one from another. How can one create a national identity in our cinema? It’s impossible.” For all those willing to check on this other point of view of Brazil, as well as a different point of view on teenagehood, The Famous and the Dead is a good call.

Bruno Carmelo