Blah Blah Blah / Blablablá (1968, 35mm, 26m) + Bang Bang / Bangue Bangue (1971, 35mm, 80m)
A key figure in Brazil’s udigrudi (“underground”) or marginal cinema movement, Andrea Tonacci passed away last December at the age of 72. Blah Blah Blah, his seminal short, is a middle finger to both Cinema Novo and Brazil’s military government at the time: in the face of national crisis, a dictator makes a long speech on television, seeking to justify his government in order to achieve an illusory peace. Bang Bang, his structurally radical first feature, is a “Maoist detective comedy”: a monkey man is chased by a gang of bizarre criminals, each encounter growing increasingly absurd.