Previewed below is the full list of books, video essays and online/journal publications produced by the IntermIdia Project thus far.

Online/Journal publications/Video Essays

Considerations on the Musical Numbers of Brazilian Chanchadas
Flavia Cesarino Costa
Significação: Revista de Cultura Audiovisual, São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo. Escola de Comunicações e Artes, v. 45, n. 50, p. 179-203, julho-dezembro 2018. ISSN: 2316-7114. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2018.138619

This article comments on accounts by Irina Rajewski and Agnes Pethö on the intermediality in cinema and audiovisual production and discusses the use of intermediality as a critical category on the analysis of musical numbers of Brazilian chanchadas of the 1950s directed by Watson Macedo in the 1950s. Film researchers have worked on the connections between Brazilian chanchadas and popular theatre, radio, phonographic industry and Hollywood. The relationship between these distinct cultural practices have been discussed considering the film as the main point of discussion, but, according to Charles Musser, these musical numbers may be better understood inside the broader circuit of media and urban cultural practices.

This audiovisual essay looks at the work of two musicians ­­– José do Patrocínio Oliveira and Nestor Amaral. The two had successful careers in Brazilian radio and musical performance and also appeared in a number of Hollywood films of the 1940s. The essay’s strategy is to collect a number of José and Nestor’s marginal appearances and through juxtaposition, and in relation to a series of on-screen titles, to draw attention to the formal and political dimensions of the deployment of the pair. The intention is also playful, and unpicking the transnational trajectory of the two musicians uncovers surprising elements to this hidden history. (Link to full page, inc. text article, in title).

This article investigates activities at the Teatro Santa Helena, in São Paulo, during 1927, when this cineteatro was at the forefront of the programming strategies undertaken by the consortium of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Empresas Reunidas, the largest exhibition chain in the city. Film practices and film reception are addressed, with special attention to mixed programs involving stage and screen attractions, to understand movie theaters as privileged spaces for intermedial relations between cinema, stage, music, and other artistic and cultural practices.

“A Role in Which the Work Is Not Completely Passive” Eva Nil, Miss Right Now (1927), and Women’s Work in Brazilian Silent Cinema
Luciana Corrêa de Araújo
Feminist Media Histories, Vol. 3 No. 4, Fall 2017; (pp. 102-125) DOI: 10.1525/fmh.2017.3.4.102

The silent Brazilian film Miss Right Now (1927), produced by and starring Eva Nil, who also worked as a camera and laboratory assistant on the film, stands out as a powerful and rare example of a woman’s creative agency in early Brazilian cinema. The plight of this film also provides a means to consider the conditions of women’s on- and offscreen work, dominant models for female screen protagonists in 1920s Brazil, and negotiations between modern and traditional values within an emergent Brazilian star system.

Yaaba, cinefilia e realismo sem fronteiras
Lúcia Nagib
Revista África(s), 4 (7), 2017. pp. 61-70. ISSN 2446-7375

Graças a Yaaba (Idrissa Ouédraogo, 1989) o povo mossi, de língua moré, de Burkina Faso, ganhou expressão audiovisual e física sem precedentes ou rivais. Desde as primeiras imagens, mostrando os protagonistas infantis Nopoko e Bila correndo na paisagem vasta e ocre do Sahel, não resta dúvida, de que Yaaba é um filme internacional, que recicla com criatividade tropos universais num ambiente nunca antes filmado com tanto realismo. Ouédraogo aponta como fonte da história, escrita também por ele, a literatura oral de sua região. Em que pese essa origem local, o argumento desenvolvido é claramente produto de um cinéfilo que se deixou inspirar amplamente por um dos filmes fundadores do cinema realista, Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray, 1955). O que essa intertextualidade demonstra não é a falta de originalidade de Ouédraogo, mas o modo pelo qual realismo e tropos universais se irmanam quando se trata de explorar um novo veio cinematográfico.

Tierra, utopía y mito fundador. De Glauber Rocha a Walter Salles
Lúcia Nagib
Enfoco (52), 2017. pp. 22-33

Gracias a su riqueza y complejidad, las imágenes marítimas de Rocha se convirtieron en la fuente principal de los motivos utópicos disponibles en el cine brasileño. En particular, “El Cinema de Retomada” de mediados de los años noventa trajo mitos inaugurales y los impulsos vinculados a la formación de Brasil y la identidad nacional, favoreciendo el retorno del pensamiento utópico.

Le Parricide, le cinéma d’auteur et le Vigo de Salles Gomes
Lúcia Nagib
Archives, 109 (111), 2017. pp. 48-52

Un après-midi du début d’août, [Jean Vigo] alla acheter des lacets pour les bottines d’Almereyda » (Salles Gomes 1957 : 29-30). Cette phrase, jetée par Paulo Emilio Salles Gomes sous une forme apparemment accidentelle dans un paragraphe où elle ne se lie nullement à ce qui vient avant ou après, est pourtant une suggestion choquante que Jean Vigo aurait involontairement tué son père, Miguel Almereyda, dont l’assassin se servit de ces lacets pour l’étrangler en prison. Cette phrase fait une première apparition dans le livre Vigo dit Almereyda, de Salles Gomes, dont il ne reste de nos jours que la traduction en portugais ; et elle est reprise telle quelle par l’auteur dans le chapitre abrégé de ce livre au début de Jean Vigo, sa célèbre biographie du cinéaste. Dans ce texte, je vais focaliser sur la figure du parricide comme ingrédient voilé mais central de l’approche biographique de Salles Gomes, avec laquelle il nous fait entrevoir les contradictions inhérentes à son projet de combiner biographie, fiction et analyse d’art. Elles dérivent surtout du fait que la prémisse conservatrice de l’héritage patrilinéaire, grâce à laquelle toute l’œuvre de Vigo se change en hommage au père anarchiste absent, doit constamment faire place à la défense de l’avant-garde libertaire et antiautoritaire. En même temps, c’est grâce à ces contradictions que l’on découvre le dilemme au cœur même du cinéma d’auteur, pas encore né au moment où la biographie de Vigo est achevée en 1952, mais que Salles Gomes prévoit avec une étonnante clarté : le besoin de tuer le « cinéma de papa » et toutes les figures paternelles étouffantes, tout en cherchant des substituts du père absent, un processus démontré de manière exemplaire par l’héritier majeur de Vigo, François Truffaut, dans ses films ainsi que dans sa relation avec le père de la théorie du cinéma, André Bazin.

A intermedialidade como narrativa histórica em Mistérios de Lisboa
Lúcia Nagib
Aniki: Revista Portuguesa da Imagem em Movimento, 2017. DOI: 4. 10.14591/aniki.v4n2.339

A produção cinematográfica volumosa de Raúl Ruiz já foi definida como um filme único e interminável devido ao notório desprezo do diretor por desfechos narrativos. Mistérios de Lisboa é seu filme mais longo, consistindo numa adaptação de 4h26min como filme e 6h como série televisiva do romance homônimo de Camilo Castelo Branco, composto de uma rede de estórias que se multiplicam ao longo de gerações. No entanto, todas essas estórias na série televisiva e a maioria delas no filme chegam a uma resolução lógica, indicando que a duração prolongada da obra se deve ao gênero escolhido, o folhetim literário combinado com a telenovela, e não ao fato de ser uma obra aberta. Defendo aqui a hipótese de que os procedimentos auto-reflexivos do filme, que questionam o dispositivo fílmico e sua posição hierárquica entre as outras mídias, trazem a estória para perto da realidade e da narrativa histórica ao criar brechas no enredo pelas quais se vislumbram a incompletude e incoerência da vida real. Neste contexto, as constantes transformações intermediais do filme funcionam como “passagens” para o real, pelas quais azulejos, teatros de papelão, desenhos e pinturas ganham vida e vice-versa, subvertendo discretamente a ideia de que a estória possa ter um único fim, ou um final qualquer.

Tão longe é aqui e a música dos ruídos: aproximações teóricas sobre aspectos do som no cinema contemporâneo
Kira Pereira, Suzana Reck Miranda
Rebeca – Revista Brasileira de Estudos de Cinema e Audiovisual, v.5, n.1, 2016. DOI: 10.22475/rebeca.v5n1.265

No intuito de refletir sobre possíveis transformações dos papéis “tradicionais” da música e dos ruídos no cinema, este ensaio se debruça sobre o desenho de som do documentário Tão longe é aqui (Eliza Capai, 2013) a partir de um objetivo específico: observar em que medida os ruídos, no cinema contemporâneo, ao mesmo tempo em que escapam de um vínculo exclusivo com a verossimilhança, acabam operando funções que tradicionalmente são legadas à música de cinema. Para tanto, usaremos conceitos oriundos dos estudos da música no cinema narrativo ficcional como ponto de partida, embora nossa reflexão, conforme o leitor poderá notar, propositalmente esteja voltada a um exemplo contemporâneo e – a priori – não ficcional.

Que coisas nossas são estas? Música popular, disco e o início do cinema sonoro no Brasil
Suzana Reck Miranda
Significação: Revista de Cultura Audiovisual, v.42, n.44 , 2015. DOI: 10.11606/issn.2316-7114.sig.2015.103701

Este artigo destaca elementos históricos e estilísticos que cercam o filme Coisas Nossas (1931), apontado como o primeiro longa-metragem musical brasileiro ‘inteiramente sincronizado’ com o uso do sistema vitaphone. Interessa-nos, sobretudo, o seu repertório musical. Observaremos possíveis ligações dos estilos e dos intérpretes com a dinâmica da indústria fonográfica do período, na tentativa de compreender o que, naquele momento, foi tomado como sendo as “nossas coisas”.

El vuelo del buitre: Ruy Guerra y la historia de las repeticiones
Albert Elduque Busquet
2016, La Furia Umana, 30. ISSN 2037-0431

Probablemente la imagen más conocida del cine de Ruy Guerra sea el travelling circular sobre Norma Bengell en Os Cafajestes (1962). Jandir (Jece Valadão) y Vavá (Daniel Filho) planean hacer chantaje al tío de este con fotos de su novia Leda (Norma Bengell) desnuda en la playa. A tal efecto, engañan a la chica para que se quite la ropa, se la roban y se marchan en coche. Ella los persigue, sin éxito, hasta que Vavá sale del capó y, armado con una cámara, empieza a fotografiarla. Mientras Jandir conduce en círculos alrededor de la chica, encarcelándola, la cámara de Guerra se sitúa sobre el vehículo, virtualmente en la misma posición que la de Vavá, y como espectadores asistimos a un travelling circular de casi tres minutos y medio en torno al cuerpo desnudo de la mujer, abatida en la arena, rendida, tapándose infructuosamente. El movimiento termina con un plano congelado de ella, pidiendo piedad. Aunque la secuencia todavía incorporará algunas imágenes más (otro plano desde el coche alejándose de Leda, algunas tomas de sus prendas…), obviamente el núcleo se encuentra en ese travelling circular eterno, insoportable, sobre su cuerpo indefenso.

Augusto Annibal quer casar!: teatro popular e Hollywood no cinema silencioso brasileiro
Luciana Corrêa de Araújo
Alceu, 16 (31), 2015, pp. 62-73

A partir da pesquisa sobre a comédia Augusto Annibal quer casar! (1923), este artigo procura analisar as relações existentes, no período do cinema silencioso, entre a produção cinematográfica brasileira, o cinema hollywoodiano e o teatro popular, investigando também as conexões com outras práticas culturais e setores da atividade cinematográfica.

Still Brazil
Stefan Solomon
[in]Transition, 3 (3), 2016. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/2016/still-brazil

A video essay analysing the use of the freeze frame in two Brazilian films. (Link to text article in title and reference above).

“Materials Have Memories”: An Interview with Melissa Dullius and Gustavo Jahn (Distruktur)
Stefan Solomon
Senses of Cinema, 2016
Brazilian filmmaking duo Melissa Dullius and Gustavo Jahn began working together in 1999 in Porto Alegre, and since 2007 have been based in Berlin, operating under the title “Distruktur”. The two also have some experience in acting roles: Jahn is perhaps most recognisable from his appearance in O Som ao Redor (Neighbouring Sounds, Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012), and Dullius appeared alongside him in Os Residentes (The Residents, Tiago Mata Machado, 2010). Since their earliest collaborations in Brazil, they have shot mostly in 16mm, and today maintain a strong interest in the materiality of their medium as part of the analogue film collective, LaborBerlin. After producing a number of shorts – as well as works that involve live performance and sound – Dullius and Jahn have recently completed their debut feature, Muito Romântico, which premiered in the Forum Expanded section of the 2016 Berlinale. It is a film that combines a punk sensibility with calculated risk-taking, consolidating the pair’s affinity for celluloid, as well as their ability to breathe life into the archive. I spoke with Distruktur about their practice as filmmakers, and their relationship to the materials of cinema.

A Cinema That Could Explode or Implode: Ana Vaz Discusses “Occidente”
Stefan Solomon
MUBI Notebook, 2016

The Brazilian director Ana Vaz is steadily building a portfolio of experimental works that address in equal share the lasting impact of the spread of empire, and the felt effects of the anthropocene. This summer, MUBI is screening Vaz’s 2014 short film, Occidente, a captivating work that deftly layers sound and image, taking aim at Portugal’s colonial legacy and strategically drawing past and present into fresh and unpredictable relations. I spoke with Vaz recently about her filmmaking process, and about the philosophical implications of her work.

Two Ways of Filming a Crisis: Brazilian Political Cinema Today
Stefan Solomon
LOLA, 2016
In the past few years, Brazil’s place in the media cycle has been divided between the enthusiastic and the embarrassing: on the one hand, the nation’s status as an emerging power among the BRICS group, and its soft diplomatic gestures as host of both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro; on the other, the massive anti-government demonstrations that accompanied those two sporting events, the worsening spread of the Zika virus, the country’s real economic stagnation after a period of continuous growth, and now the coup de grâce – this year’s political coup that has seen the impeachment and deposition of president Dilma Rousseff, amidst confirmations of pervasive corruption and bribery at various levels of the political class. It is a tale of dashed hopes and diminishing returns, in which the successive prophesies contained in the protestors’ hashtags – #NãoVaiTerCopa (“There Will Be No World Cup”) and #NãoVaiTerGolpe (“There Will Be No Coup”) – turned out to be false.

Paiva S, (2016). Cinema, intermidialidade e métodos historiográficos: o Árido Movie em Pernambuco
Samuel Paiva
Significação: Revista de Cultura Audiovisual, v.43, n.45, 2016

O artigo diz respeito à historiografia do cinema, procurando investigar a possibilidade de compreensão da intermidialidade como método historiográfico. Parte das proposições de Lúcia Nagib sobre “políticas da impureza”, por sua vez pautadas pela noção de “cinema impuro”, de André Bazin, cotejando-as com os “fenômenos intermidiáticos” apresentados por Irina Rajewsky e também com a “historiografia de metodologias” da intermidialidade nos filmes, tal como proposta por Ágnes Pethö. Como estudo de caso, considera a produção do cinema de Pernambuco, com maior interesse no longa metragem Baile perfumado (1996), embora referindo outras obras dos anos 1990 aos dias atuais.

Um Aspecto da Tropicália: a Intermidialidade como Resposta ao Exílio
Samuel Paiva
Rumores – Revista Online de Comunicação, Linguagem e Mídias, 2016, pp. 106-120

Na transição das décadas de 1960 e 1970, artistas brasileiros relacionados ao Tropicalismo em campos midiáticos diversos foram obrigados a sair do Brasil por conta da ditadura militar. Em resposta à crise então instaurada na sociedade brasileira, os exilados, sobretudo os que se estabeleceram em Londres, na Inglaterra, estabeleceram entre si uma interação que envolvia suas produções artísticas, como uma forma de resistência simultaneamente estética e política. Assim, com foco de interesse voltado a tal produção, este artigo tem por objetivo um mapeamento inicial de obras artísticas brasileiras produzidas na condição desse exílio, procurando contribuir para a construção de um método historiográfico pautado pela perspectiva da intermidialidade.

The necessary amateur. Cinema, education and politics. Interview with Cezar Migliorin
Albert Elduque Busquet
Cinema Comparat/ive Cinema, IV (9), 2016, pp. 36-42

Interview with Cezar Migliorin, one of the coordinators of the cinema project in Brazilian schools Inventar com a 
Diferença. We talk about their pedagogical methods, focused on sensitive research with images rather than on the notions of representations, and we discuss the political aspect of cinema made in communities, both in schools and indigenous groups. Working collectively and cinema as a non-professional activity emerge as strong bonds between these works and the manifestos of the New Latin American Cinema. Finally, we deal with the issue of montage, a key element when thinking about political cinema based on the massive production of images taking place today.

Hunger and Rotten Flesh: Cinema Novo, Pasolini, Eisenstein
Albert Elduque Busquet

[in]Transition, 3 (3), 2016. http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/2016/hunger-and-rotten-flesh
Video essay for the journal [in]Transition about the concepts of hunger and consumption in Brazilian Cinema Novo, considering its dialogues with Pasolini and Eisenstein. (Link to text article in title and reference above).

Chanchada e intermidialidade: alguns comentários sobre Aviso aos Navegantes (1950)
Flavia Cesarino Costa
Pós, Revista do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Artes da Escola de Belas Artes da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil, Volume 6 (Number 12), 2016, pp. 87-98

Neste artigo abordamos o filme Aviso aos Navegantes, dirigido por Watson Macedo em 1950 para a produtora carioca Atlântida Cinematográfica, considerando as formas particulares de inter-relação do cinema brasileiro sonoro da primeira metade do século 20 com outras práticas culturais. Procuramos utilizar a intermidialidade como categoria crítica, acolhendo a natureza híbrida do cinema brasileiro como fator explicativo que permite o entendimento das comédias musicais como inseridas num conjunto mais amplo de diversas práticas culturais.

Non-Cinema, or The Location of Politics in Film
Lúcia Nagib
Film-Philosophy, Volume 20 (Issue 1), 2016, pp. 131-148

Philosophy has repeatedly denied cinema in order to grant it artistic status. Adorno, for example, defined an ‘uncinematic’ element in the negation of movement in modern cinema, ‘which constitutes its artistic character’. Similarly, Lyotard defended an ‘acinema’, which rather than selecting and excluding movements through editing, accepts what is ‘fortuitous, dirty, confused, unclear, poorly framed, overexposed’. In his Handbook of Inaesthetics, Badiou embraces a similar idea, by describing cinema as an ‘impure circulation’ that incorporates the other arts. Resonating with Bazin and his defence of ‘impure cinema’, that is, of cinema’s interbreeding with other arts, Badiou seems to agree with him also in identifying the uncinematic as the location of the Real. This article will investigate the particular impurities of cinema that drive it beyond the specificities of the medium and into the realm of the other arts and the reality of life itself. Privileged examples will be drawn from various moments in film history and geography, starting with the analysis of two films by Jafar Panahi: This Is Not a Film (In film nist, 2011), whose anti-cinema stance in announced in its own title; and The Mirror (Aineh, 1997), another relentless exercise in self-negation. It goes on to examine Kenji Mizoguchi’s deconstruction of cinematic acting in his exploration of the geidomono genre (films about theatre actors) in The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (Zangigku monogatari, 1939), and culminates in the conjuring of the physical experience of death through the systematic demolition of film genres in The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer et al., 2012).

Dois movimentos como primeira aproximação aos filmes da Belair
Albert Elduque Busquet
VI Encontro Anual da AIM (Associação de Investigadores da Imagem em Movimento), 2016, pp. 165-175

Esta comunicação estuda um plano do filme Cuidado Madame (1970), realizado por Júlio Bressane na produtora Belair. Nesta imagem, a câmera movimenta-se num apartamento carioca enquanto ouvimos duas marchinhas de Lamartine Babo. Partindo da relevância desta música, queremos explorar como a melodia encarna a liberdade das empregadas protagonistas do filme e, ao mesmo tempo, ver como imagem e som podem, por causa da separação entre eles, afirmar sua fisicalidade e terminar completamente entrelaçados. Partiremos da análise das imagens e músicas do filme, assim como de conceitos e ideias de Ismail Xavier, Ágnes Pethő e Roland Barthes.

Books

We are pleased to announce that Stefan Solomon’s introduction to Tropicália and Beyond: Dialogues in Brazilian Film History (Berlin: Archive Books, 2017) is now available as a free download! If you like what you read here, please consider purchasing the collection of 22 essays, interviews, and manifestos through Archive Books.

Unfortunately, Albert Elduque Busquets’ fantastic catalogue, ‘Contemporary Brazilian Music Film‘, is not available for purchase. The republication agreement with some authors included that we cannot make commercial use of their material. However, we are offering the catalogue in the Reading Film Theatre alongside a “donation” scheme. A full PDF of the catalogue will be available soon.

Book Chapters/Offline publications

Lisa Purse, (2018). Between phonographic perfection and resistance: Titãs – Life Even Looks Like a Party. In Albert Elduque, Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. (pp. 27-29). Reading:University of Reading

PAIVA, S., PIANCO, W.. (2017). Filmes de Viagem de Manoel de Oliveira: Passagens da História a Contrapelo. In JUNQUEIRA, R.S., Os Pobres no Cinema de Manoel de Oliveira: Estudos Interdisciplinares de Cinema, Literatura e Sociedade..

PAIVA S., (2017). A Figura de Orson Welles no Cinema de Rogério Sganzerla. São Paulo: Alameda Editorial

Solomon S, (2017). A Brand New Thing: Country Focus: Brazil. 22nd International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) Handbook

Solomon S, (2017). Introduction. In Solomon S, Tropicália and Beyond: Dialogues in Brazilian Film History. Berlin:Archive Books

Solomon S, (2017). Tropicália and Beyond: Dialogues in Brazilian Film History. Germany: Archive Books

Elduque, A., (2017). Vindicating the composer: An interview with Márcia Derraik about Where the Owl Sleeps. In Elduque, A. (Ed.), Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. (pp. 87-89). Reading:University of Reading

Elduque, A., (2017). What about the end of the history? An interview with Hernani Heffner. In Elduque, A. (Ed.), Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. (pp. 17-21). Reading:University of Reading

Elduque, A., (2017). Making it visible: An interview with Sérgio Roizenblit about The Miracle of Santa Luzia. In Elduque, A. (Ed.), Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. (pp. 103-109). Reading:University of Reading

Elduque, A., (2017). Introduction. In Elduque, A. (Ed.), Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. (pp. 5-15). Reading:University of Reading

Elduque, A., (2017). Cut it Like a Tambourine Beat: Ricardo Miranda on the Editing of The Age of the Earth. In Solomon, S. (Ed.), Tropicália and Beyond. Dialogues in Brazilian Film History. (pp. 193-209). Berlin:Archive Books

Elduque, A. (Ed.), (2017). Contemporary Brazilian Music Film. Reading: University of Reading

Elduque Albert, Lima Cristiane da Silveira, Campana Ramia Maria, Ramos Nuno, Oliveira Paulo da Costa e Silva Franco de, Aguiar Joaquim Alves de, Campos Augusto de, Veloso Caetano, Jobim Tom, Tatit Luiz, (2017). Contemporary Brazilian music film. United Kingdom: University of Reading

Elduque, A., (2017). As Belair went by: An interview with Helena Ignez. In Solomon, S. (Ed.), Tropicália and Beyond. Dialogues in Brazilian Film History. (pp. 123-135). Berlin:Archive Books

Araújo, L C de, (2017). Cléo de Verberena e o trabalho da mulher no cinema silencioso brasileiro. In Holanda, K , Tedesco, M C (Ed.), Feminino e plural: Mulheres no cinema brasileiro. (pp. 15-29). Campinas:Papirus

Nagib L, (2017). Antropofagia e intermidialidade: uso da literatura colonial no cinema modernista brasileiro. In Araujo D, Rebeca – Edição especial XX Encontro Socine: Convergências do/no Cinema. (pp. 141-152). São Paulo:SOCINE

PAIVA, S, (2016). Diário de um Video Assist Amador do Baile Perfumado. In MANSUR, A, CUNHA P (Ed.), A Aventura do Baile Perfumado: 20 Anos Depois. Recife-PE-Brasil:CEPE – Companhia Editora de Pernambuco

Nagib L, (2018). Colonialism as fantastic realism in Tabu. In Liz M, Portuguese Cinema: Globalizing the Nation. (pp. 226-238). London/New York:IB Tauris

Nagib L, (2017). Beyond difference: female participation in the Brazilian film revival of the 1990s. In Martin D, Shaw D (Ed.), Latin American Women Filmmakers. (pp. 31-47). London/New York:IB Tauris

Nagib L, (2017). The Horizontal Spread of a Vertical Malady. A Companion to Latin American Cinema. (pp. 341-356).

Nagib L, (2016). Regurgitated bodies: presenting and representing trauma in The Act of Killing. In Tzioumakis Y, Molloy C (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Cinema and Politics. (pp. 218-230). Abingdon-on-Thames:Routledge

Nagib L, (2017). Realist Cinema as World Cinema. In Stone R, Cooke P (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to World Cinema. (pp. 310-322). Abingdon-on-Thames:Routledge

Upcoming Events

Silent Movie Prologues from Brazil

Join us at the Minghella Studios on the 6^th and 7^th of December to experience the restaging of two Silent Movie Prologues, together with a screening of the films they were designed to accompany: Buster Keaton’s wonderful comedy feature Go West (US, 1925) and the surviving fragment of another extraordinary 1920s film, Beggar on Horseback (US, James Cruze, 1925).

The two prologues, “The Stylised Cowboy” and “Doing it the Pirandello way…”, were originally created to accompany the presentation of the films in Cinelândia, the area of marquee cinemas in Rio de Janeiro, in 1926. As part of the AHRC-FAPESP funded IntermIdia project, in conjunction with Reading Film Theatre and integrated into the final year of their degree programme, students from the Department of Film, Theatre & Television will perform the prologues as a prelude to these classics of silent cinema.

Tickets are available from Reading Film Theatre (webpages here: 6^th, 7^th), and cost £8 full price and £5 concessions. (There are also discounts for groups). We look forward to seeing you there!

For more information, see the full event page here.

Passages

Passages, an essay film written and directed by Lúcia Nagib and Samuel Paiva
Release date: Spring 2019

The Passages Promotional Video is now available to view below. Further updates to come.

The relationship between cinema and the real is probably the most central and complex issue in film studies. Passages attempts to address this issue by looking at a selection of films in which intermedial devices, that is, the utilisation within film of artforms such as painting, theatre, music, photography and others, appear to function as a ‘passage’ to political and social reality. In preparation for the film, we have interviewed 15 key Brazilian filmmakers, technicians and curators, all of whom are prominent figures of what became known as the Retomada do Cinema Brasileiro, or the Brazilian Film Revival, of the 1990s, which brought back to the agenda the question of national identity and Brazil’s lingering social issues. The flourishing and diversification of independent filmmaking from that period onwards favoured not only a new approach to reality, but an emboldened use of the film medium that acknowledged and exposed its inextricable connections with other art and medial forms. The Passages project proposes that the intermedial method is thus strategically poised to shed a new light on the ways in which these films not only represented but interfered with and transformed the world around them. The chosen case studies hail from Pernambuco, in the northeast of Brazil, and from São Paulo, in the southeast, whose filmmakers, though stemming from disparate regional cultures, have been in a close artistic dialogue since the Brazilian Film Revival, demonstrating their shared values at a certain historical juncture and interconnectedness across Brazilian geography.

See full page here.

Past Events

Preview Screening of Passages (18min version)

Within the remit of the AHRC-FAPESP funded IntermIdia Project, Lúcia Nagib (UoR) and Samuel Paiva (Federal University of São Carlos) are directing a feature-length documentary film entitled Passages, which has received support from the University of Reading through a BOISP award, and is due to be completed in February 2019. A short version of 18 minutes of this film has been prepared for screenings at a few special events, including a presentation at the University of Reading on Tuesday 6^th November 2018. The screening was introduced by Nagib and Paiva and was followed by discussion with the directors, editor Tatiana Germano and producers Sílvia Macedo and Albert Elduque. Visiting scholar Amanda Mansur acted as discussant.

Full-Day Workshop – (Post)Colonial Images: an Intermedial Approach

21st June 2018, 11:00-18:00 – Studio Space, Minghella Studios, University of Reading

With the (Post)Colonial Images Workshop now complete, see here for photos of the event.

The fantastic Maria do Carmo Piçarra contributed to the IntermIdia project with a wonderful full-day workshop, entitled: ‘(Post)Colonial Images: an Intermedial Approach’. The workshop ran from 11:00 to 18:00, in the Studio Space, Minghella Studios, included a screening, an exhibition and some fantastic names, such as Vicente Sánchez-Biosca as keynote speaker and not least an opening speech by Maria do Carmo herself. See the full programme here.

Silent Movie Prologues in Brazil

With the Silent Movie Prologues event in Brazil now complete, see below a video summary and photos of the event.

Brazil: 30th June 2018, Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS-SP), São Paulo, Brazil
UK: December 2018, University of Reading, further details to be confirmed.

Silent Movie Prologues in Brazil brought together theatre and film, by restaging the comedic movie prologues which used to precede the screening of silent Hollywood films.  In 1926, film exhibitor Francisco Serrador introduced the movie prologues, a novelty intended to attract audiences to the luxurious cinemas he had built at Cinelândia, in the centre of Rio de Janeiro. Movie prologues were stage presentations based on themes, characters and scenes of the foreign films they preceded. Usually accompanied by dance and musical numbers, they drew inspiration on the popular teatro de revista, the Brazilian vaudeville-style theatre.

The first restaging of the Brazilian movie prologues took place on 30 June 2018 at Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS-SP), by the theatre troupe Companhia Antropofágica. In December, the programme will travel to the UK, and will involve staff and students of the Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading.

For more information, see here for the original event page.

Contemporary Brazilian Music Film Season

Unfortunately, Albert Elduque Busquets’ fantastic catalogue, ‘Contemporary Brazilian Music Film‘, is not available for purchase. The republication agreement with some authors included that we cannot make commercial use of their material. However, we are offering the catalogue in the Reading Film Theatre alongside a “donation” scheme. A full PDF of the catalogue will be available soon.

This season and course are a partnership between the IntermIdia Project and the Reading Film Theatre. For more information, please e-mail a.elduquebusquets@reading.ac.uk.

Tropicália And Beyond: Dialogues In Brazilian Film History

9-12 November 2017, Starr Cinema, Bankside, London, UK

We are pleased to announce that Stefan Solomon’s introduction to Tropicália and Beyond: Dialogues in Brazilian Film History (Berlin: Archive Books, 2017) is now available as a free download! If you like what you read here, please consider purchasing the collection of 22 essays, interviews, and manifestos through Archive Books.

With the Tropicália season at the TATE now complete, see below for the Canal Londres TV report on the Tate Tropicália Season, images and videos of the event and the opening night Panel discussion. For full videos of Panel discussions and Screening Introductions from the season, see our videos page here.

Explore Brazil’s cinematic past in fresh conversation with the present. This seven-screening programme offered a rare chance to see some of the films that defined tropicalist imaginary of the 60s and 70s, alongside contemporary works responding to, restoring or even resisting the legacy of the previous generation.

Tropicália and Beyond: Dialogues in Brazilian Film History was curated by Stefan Solomon with Tate Film, and presented in collaboration with the University of Reading.

• Find out more about this event on the Tate website

II IntermIdia Conference
‘The Moving Form of Film: Exploring Intermediality as a Historiographic Method’

6-8 November 2017, University of Reading, UK

Full Conference Brochure now available

With the II IntermIdia conference now complete, see below for images of the event and what people thought about the conference. For full videos of Keynote speeches and Plenary discussions from the conference, see our videos page here.

• View the II IntermIdia Conference Brochure

About the conference

As part of the AHRC/FAPESP-funded IntermIdia Project (www.reading.ac.uk/intermidia), led by investigators from the University of Reading (UoR), UK, and the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil, this international conference sought to invite discussion of intermediality as a historiographic method.

• Find out more about the II IntermIdia conference.

The IntermIdia project explores the intersections between cinema, literature and history in the Universidade do Algarve

On 20 and 21 of October 2016, the IntermIdia project was represented by a keynote speech and a panel at the international conference “Europe and the Colonial Empires of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries in Literature and Film”. The conference was held in Faro (Portugal) and organised by the Research Centre on Arts and Communication (CIAC) of the Faculty of Human and Social Sciences of the Universidade do Algarve, and the Centre of Literature and Lusophon and European Cultures (CLEPUL) of the Faculty of Humanities of the Universidade de Lisboa.

Professor Lúcia Nagib (University of Reading), Principle Investigator on the IntermIdia Project, delivered a keynote speech entitled “Anthropophagy and Intermediality: uses of colonial literature in modernist Brazilian cinema”. The keynote addressed the relations between anthropophagy and intermediality by studying the film How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (Como era gostoso o meu francês, 1970-72), directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos during the Brazilian military dictatorship. Secondly, the panel titled ‘Intermediality and History in Brazilian Cinema’ included the papers “The Transition to Colour in Antonio das Mortes“, by Dr. Stefan Solomon (University of Reading), and “The filmed song as a historical account”, by Dr. Albert Elduque (University of Reading), and was focused in the relation between cinema and history taking particular account of colours and songs.

Therefore, both the keynote speech and the panel explored how the interaction between different arts makes possible a new and rich approach to history, offering an alternative to traditional accounts. In this way, in the context of studies on history, literature and film, intermediality was presented as a strong and promising historiographical method.

International Conference Towards an Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema – 9–11 November 2016

The first IntermIdia International Conference, ‘Towards an Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema’, took place on 9–11 November 2016, at the Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil.

As part of the FAPESP/AHRC-funded project ‘IntermIdia – Towards an Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema: Exploring Intermediality as a Historiographic Method’, led by investigators from Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) and University of Reading, (UoR), this international conference sought to invite discussion of intermediality as a historiographic method as applied to Brazilian cinema.

The conference was organised by the research group Cinemídia, which is coordinated by the IntermIdia project investigators from UFSCar.

Where To Sit At The Dinner Table? Happy Hour Discussion with Writer and Director Pedro Neves Marques – 7 June 2016

Pedro Neves Marques is an artist, writer, and filmmaker, whose work draws surprising connections between technology and the natural world. His 2013 experimental film, Where to Sit at the Dinner Table?, explores the genealogies of colonialism, anthropology, and ecology, and focuses especially on the resonance of cannibalism in the history of Brazil. This intimate event featured a discussion of the film with the director.

Workshop Understanding Intermediality – 13 April 2016

The first IntermIdia Workshop, ‘Understanding Intermediality’, took place on 13 April, at the University of Reading. It finished with a keynote speech, open to the public, given by Prof Ágnes Pethö on ‘Understanding Intermediality in Contemporary Cinema: Changing shapes of In-Betweenness’. The full programme can be seen here: IntermIdia Workshop Programme.

The full workshop can be viewed here:

IntermIdia Launch Event – 30 September 2015

PROGRAMME

• 17:30: Introduction by Professor Steve Mithen (UoR Deputy Vice-Chancellor; PVC Research)
• 17:40: Presentation of the Project by Professor Lúcia Nagib (UoR PI)
• 18:00: Presentations by Dr John Gibbs, Dr Lisa Purse, Alison Butler (UoR Co-Is)
• 18:15: Virtual presentations by Dr Luciana Araújo (UFSCar PI), Dr Flávia Cesarino Costa, Dr Samuel Paiva, Dr Suzana Reck Miranda (UFSCar Co-Is)
• 18:45: Wine Reception