Presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Center for Brazilian Studies, UCLA Division of Humanities, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Department of Spanish & Portuguese
July 11, 2014 - August 15, 2014
Billy Wilder Theater
The Portuguese word “cruzamentos”
translates literally as “crossings” or “intersections,” but in Brazil, it also
refers metaphorically to the mixing of cultures and ethnicities that renders
the country so distinctive. Such cross pollination is also one of the
reasons why Brazil has been producing some of the most innovative and
captivating documentaries on the globe for the last four decades. Not
only have Brazilian filmmakers such as Eduardo Coutinho, Leon Hirszman, João
Moreira Salles and Walter Salles moved freely between documentaries and fiction
films, but many of the documentaries themselves also blur the lines between
fact and fiction, memory and truth, performance and personality. Part of
the largest survey of Brazilian cinema in North America since the Museum of
Modern Art’s defining 1998 series and tour, Cinema Novo and Beyond
(also presented in Los Angeles by the Archive), Cruzamentos: Contemporary
Brazilian Documentary provides an occasion to explore this provocative and
engaging cinematic tradition, from founding texts (Iracema, 1974; Twenty
Years Later, 1985) to recent triumphs (Justice, 2004; Santiago,
2007). At the same time, it allows an opportunity to examine a country in
motion and to contextualize the astonishing economic and cultural
transformation that Brazil has witnessed over the past 20 years.
Note: This
series was drawn from the larger touring program, Cruzamentos: Contemporary
Brazilian Documentary, curated by Chris Stults, associate curator,
film/video, Wexner Center for the Arts. Program notes adapted from notes
written by Chris Stults.
Cruzamentos is made
possible through the support of UCLA Latin American Institute, UCLA Center for
Brazilian Studies, the UCLA Department of Spanish & Portuguese and the UCLA
Division of Humanities.