“The most interesting news of the year comes from Brazil,” wrote A.O. Scott in his survey of the first half of New Directors/New Films today for The New York Times. Besides the two features Neighboring Sounds and Found Memories, Brazil is also present in Shorts Program 1 with Clarissa Knoll's Street Vendor Cinema. Scott summarizes it as “an energetic auteur practicing his art — and trying to hustle a little cash — in a busy São Paulo shopping area.”
“Equipped with a small digital camera, a few crude costumes and a scroll of ready-made backdrops, he invites passers-by to spend a little bit of money to produce and star in their own movies. The results are an exuberant hodgepodge of genres, including an action thriller, a samurai fantasy epic and an astonishing melodrama of race, passion and family honor set on a 19th-century plantation.” (A.O. Scott)
The first screening of Shorts Program 1 on March 24 is standby only, but a limited number of tickets are still available for March 25. Get your tickets now!
Send us a picture from your mobile phone of yourself and your environment.
Describe your film to someone who hasn't seen it.
Street Vendor Cinema is a cinematic intervention on the street. We spent 1 week on the most popular vendor street in Brazil, 25th March Street in São Paulo, selling production filmmaking of short films on demand for customers who walk by the place daily — about 450 thousand people per day.
What was the most memorable day of shooting like?
It was gorgeous when I found a character that I was looking for. A person with a whole story. Hilda is her name and she had a tragedy, she really directed her film with sensibility and vigor.
Describe your very first experience with filmmaking.
Excitement and pain.
From what types of art, other than film, do you draw inspiration?
Music, photography, literature, performing arts, painting.
What was the biggest surprise you had while making your film?
The film was and is an experience, the idea work it out. Street Vendor Cinema offered the possibility of artistic expression for anyone at the street and gave it raise for a rich popular imaginary.
Street Vendor Cinema screens in Shorts Program 1 on March 24 and March 25. Get your tickets now!
