Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil Shakes NY

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

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Published on Wednesday, 02 June 2010 17:48

Written by Laura Blum

Caphirinas, dee-jayed dança and Brazilian beats in Central Park....  Even if Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil (June 5 to 12, 2010) weren't bringing a week of new Brazilian cinema to New York, it'd still be a pretext to samba.

Back for its eighth run, the week-long carnival will lead off with the Opening Night film The Well Beloved One/O Bem Amado, followed by a festa brasileira. Guel Arraes's feature adaptation of playwright Dias Gomes' classic comedy sends up small-town politics and mores with its tale of a mayor fixated on opening a cemetery.  

It's one of 12 films competing for the audience-balloted Chrystal Lens Award, to be presented on Closing Night as part of a tropical bash at Central Park's Summerstage. Screening under the stars (though out of competition) will be the Closing Night film, Oscar Niemeyer–Life Is a Blow. The documentary by Fabiano Maciel entwines a portrait of the nation with a biography of Brazil’s legendary modernist architect.  

You may not recognize the name Oscar Niemeyer, but if you've seen photos of Brazil's planned capital city, Brasília, you've surely seen one of his signature works: the spiky, spidery Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady Aparecida.

Brasília turns 50 this year, and Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil has seized the occasion for a multi-hued salute. Prior to the Closing Night screening, Brazilian superband Paralamas do Sucesso will rock Summerstage with rising star and fellow Brasília denizen Maria Gadú. And the Festival program includes several films set in Brasília or made by brasilienses, such as Sunstroke/Insolação, Felipe Hirsch and Daniela Thomas' anthology of unrequited love stories.

Also to mark the jubilee is an exhibition tracing Brasília's construction by Niemeyer and fellow architect Lúcio Costa, who designed its wing-shaped urban plan. The show will be on display at Festival headquarters, Tribeca Cinemas (54 Varick Street).

Like the 2002 international hit City of God, most Brazilian movies are produced with the support of Globo Filmes, a corporate sibling of the country's largest television network, TV Globo. Since having entered the film scene in 1998, Globo has had a hand in Brazil's most successful commercial titles, many of which crossed over from -- or to -- telenovelas.

One example is the aforementioned The Well Beloved One, which debuted as a stage play and became a well beloved series on TV Globo. Another is So Normal 2/Os Normais 2, which comes to New York amid titters and expectations of sold-out screenings. Building on the popular sitcom and on the series' first feature film, So Normal 2 director José Alvarenga Jr. swings the lead couple into a ménage a trois.

Presented by Inffinito Group, Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil also offers Q&A sessions and other opportunities to chat with many of the filmmakers and actors featured in the 15-film program. Variations on the Festival travel to other cities, including London, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rome, Madrid, the Brazilian town of Canudos and -- for the largest competitive festival of Brazilian cinema outside of Brazil, with 40 productions -- Miami.

Full details on the Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil are posted at www.Brazilianfilmfestival.com.

Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil
June 5 to 12, 2010
Tribeca Cinemas
54 Varick Street
New York, NY 10013
(at Laight Street, one block below Canal Street)
646-827-9333

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