Madame Satã | Karim Aïnouz, Alex Ungprateeb Flynn

we would like to thank all the individuals and organizations that have helped to make tonight's screening possible all of the archive screenings in the Wilder are free thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor and we're very grateful for their support this screening is presented by the UCLA film and television archive and outfest as part of the youth outfest UCLA Legacy project screening series and has been made possible by funding from the Andrew J King Jr Foundation we're also grateful for to our co-presenting partner film quarterly for its support of this of tonight's program special thanks go as well to Our Community Partners at the UCLA lgbtq campus Resource Center the UCA Latin American Institute and the center for Brazilian studies finally we are tremendously thankful to internationally acclaimed writer director Karima news who is with us here tonight I'm going to have him come up on stage for in a few minutes but I'm going to have a round of applause right now and then we'll come up in a second I forgot to rehearse that with him sorry about that okay well we're it's a it's a real honor and pleasure to have him here with us tonight um so in 2005 UCLA film and television archive partnered with outfest to create the outfest UCLA Legacy project for lgbtq moving image preservation which is now the largest publicly accessible collection of lgbtq plus films in the world Round of Applause for that that's fantastic this screening series is a collaborative effort between outfest and the archive to highlight moving image works from this collection tonight's print of Madame SATA does come from uh is a 35 millimeter subtitle print from our collection as I mentioned also tonight's screen is being co-presented with film quarterly published by UC press with support from the Ford foundation's just films film quarterly is a film and media studies Journal advancing timely and intersectional approaches to the criticism and Analysis of visual culture this 20th anniversary screening of Madame SATA coincides with film quarterly's new issue which includes an essay by Bruno gorana who offers a queer recontextualization of Madame SATA placing it within its Brazilian Global movement or placing it within its Brazilian milieu as well as within the new queer Cinema that emerged as a global movement in the 1990s the issue also features a conversation between a news and film scholar Elisa LeBeau in which news reflects upon his career and his new film Mariner of the mountains the interview is available free online at filmcourly.org but you can also grab a free copy of film quarterly which is out in the lobby please take that with you tonight and enjoy it we're very happy uh and thankful for film quarterly support so born in Fortaleza Brazil award-winning film director screenwriter and visual artist Kareem anus made his feature film debut with tonight's film Madame SATA which premiered in the uncertain regards section at the Karen film festival in 2002 among his numerous short films documentaries Television Productions and feature films to follow a news directed Love for Sale I travel because I have to I come back because I love you the Silver Cliff and invisible life which won the uncertain regard award at can in 2019. a three-time winner of the best director at the Rio International Film Festival his most recent feature film the documentary Mariner of the mountains premiered at can in 2021 immediately following uh the screening of Madame SATA Kareem will be joined on stage by UCLA assistant professor Alex on pratib Flynn for post screening conversation so please stick around for that but now it is my honor and pleasure to Welcome to the Billy Wilder stage Karima news thank you thank you uh yeah it's very moving to be here tonight it's been 20 years um of making this after making this movie there was a moment that I never thought they would be made so it's wonderful to celebrate its long life um I'm happy to share it with you also um on film it's a film that doesn't have a gcp yet but you know so I'm happy to share it with you on 35 which is exciting I want to thank the UCLA film archive and I want to thank outfast and film quarterly and I want to thank a lot of people who are here tonight who are sort of part of my family um you know people that are very close to me so I'm very grateful there's my friend vagina my friend Andrea and a lot of other very close friends were here so I just want to thank you guys for being here enjoy the film and I'm so looking forward to talk to you afterwards um after two years of the pandemic it's really it's so wonderful to be able to exchange with real people in the room about the Impressions about you know what they just saw so for us as filmmakers it's really really it means a lot and we learn a lot so I hope you have fun hope you enjoy it and uh looking forward to sort of exchanging with you after the screening thank you thank you for inviting me to be here as well [Applause] I need those closing credits just to catch my breath that was like fantastic okay thank you for sticking around for our post screening conversation our moderator tonight Alex Umar pratib Flem I'm sorry Alex um pratib Flynn is an assistant professor at the department of world arts and cultures dance at UCLA working as an anthropologist and curator Alex's practice explores the intersection of ethnographic and curatorial modes of inquiry researching collaborative with artists curators and artists with activists curators and artists in Brazil since 2007 Alex explores the pre-figurative pre-figure of potential of Art and Community contexts prompting the theorization of fields such as the production of knowledge the plural the plur reversal and the social and aesthetic dimensions of form so um tonight during the Q a when it's uh the audience's turn um please wait for Alex to call on you we'll bring a mic to you um you can ask your question once you get the mic so now please help me welcome to the stage Alex on preteen flim and our special guest for tonight Kareem anews there we go well incredible to watch Madame SATA and a privilege to watch it with so many of you here and in the presence of the director karimanus and actually uh it's just amazing to to kind of get this the visual kinesthetic kind of impression like I have to admit that kind of watching it at home you know it's uh kind of scratchy clips and so on it's not exactly the same experience it's wonderful to see like this thank you and I really just wanted to ask you just to start things off uh that this is obviously 20 years to commemorate Madame Saturn 2002 and looking back on the film in this way like you know 20 years have passed so many things have changed like do you know how do you I'm just really curious to hear like how you reflect on the film some of the feelings like watching it seeing it again and obviously there's context yeah how are you how do you feel about it I did stay actually I know I never stay on my movies I feel like they're horrible when I finish them I don't want to see them ever again and like you know and I never see what the audience so for me it's um very rarely I go to see this with an artist I see like the premiere but today I did stay and there's there's two things which were very touching the the sort of technical conditions of showing the film tonight were incredible like the sound was really powerful and because there's no gcp every time I see this film in the last year because there was a couple of celebrations it's all scratched and stuff and today was really really beautiful so it was it was a pleasure and I had a lot of fun watching it to be honest I felt like how did I write those dialogues and like what did I do to those actors you know like so it was a real sense of um of freedom and it's really great to do it to see it 20 years later and to not forget that that's what we're here for right like it's really important to celebrate um what we do with a lot of freedom and so it was really moving and I was actually laughing a lot and and very proud of it it's difficult to for me to convey actually that you know I did a really bad job of it when I started off perhaps you could tell that like this the sheer impact the share the energy that you really Drew uh from the performances like lazula homos which is just the most amazing performance um but the whole cast really and this kind of really interesting um you know this this take 1932 Hill in Brazil this this really alternative nucleus of a family yeah and there are so many kind of interesting um themes that are present in the film that that just seems so kind of ever more relevant to me and I don't know was it was there something in particular that struck you as we were watching it again yeah I think there was something when I was doing it which I still feel very convinced about and I think it was funny because there was a line in the last fiction film I made which says that the family is not about blood but it's about love and I think that um for me this film is about you know him and it's about you know it's it's it is it is important of of Francisco Santos but it's it's really important of of a sort of a classic what I would say a classic Brazilian family um or you know not unfortunately not known as classic but it is a family of like solidarity um very complicated you know there is violence there is a lot there but I think there is ultimately you know a really beautiful sort of family you know portrait in this movie and I thought enough you know I still feel like what I find it interesting to watching today is these themes that you know as the years go by they kind of stay with you and they keep coming back and coming back so I was um I was pleased to see it and I was really really missing my cast because I think that there is this is really a movie I mean I was I mean the other thing that was interesting for me too I didn't really know what I was doing when I was making this film to be very honest with you I worked um I worked as an assistant editor I didn't really plan to make films ever and I did some short films and I work as an assistant adjective for a long time and I only had been on a film set I think like for one movie um which was a movie I worked on in New York so a lot of what I was doing there I remember that the that the GOP said you know you want to use a 35 or 50 you know like what the phone is it talking about and so like put in put a 75 you know and and um so there was a lot that I didn't know when I was making this film but it didn't matter because um I was so obsessed about making it but also the cast really they were so with the characters that at the end of the day and there was this very interesting scene which I think was the first scene that I shot um which is a scene on this like chickens and and hirachim comes to visit him and in that scene um it was very tricky because they couldn't keep their marks and they didn't know what marks were it was the first time they want to I mean Lazar had made one movie before but or maybe a couple movies before but not as a protagonist and the other character so they couldn't keep anything together but they could keep it was like it was like a fever dream you know what they were doing there was a there was a sense of really only those characters and and I thought so we couldn't keep the focus we couldn't keep the marks the directors line was crossed all the time and when I went to the editing room I actually realized that this is what the film needed to to be you know I needed to embrace my ignorance and also to embrace the passion I had for those characters and I think um this is what was really great too to see again I mean I wish I had I wish I know a little less than I know today actually when I see this film and I remember how there was something which was really boring to the to the actors and to what they proposed you know as as they're reading for the characters so it's yeah I mean I should actually be dedicated in this even into Lazar and to the cast to be honest you know so um they were really really um yeah they're really free throughout I think I've already spoken too much so perhaps we could have some questions from the floor I'm very curious don't be shy yes question here down at the front just one second wait for the microphone cutting uh which I love you right like to me he is the poet is not a director he's a poet you know and that's why you don't need to know how to make a film because your poetry always comes through but what struck me uh this time watching this film I think my hundredth time but I never seen that in the theater is how relevant it is in the Brazil times at the moment that we're living in you know because we're going through a very horrible political time and uh it's always stunning to me how your films are relevant you know like speaking about race with such truth so um as you saw the as you said that you saw this film again and it made you feel good how do you feel that you would do this if you did it now in two days [Music] where I think if I had the age I had then I would do it now probably it wouldn't happen like the first thing maybe not in this format it would happen in a more more radical way of manufacturing it but I don't know I don't know how we do it I am I probably would just I guess I wouldn't do the same right because it's 20 years later and I've made so much stuff in between and I think I do have a bit of a knowledge of what I do so I probably shouldn't make it today I think because I think it's something you know I'm always thinking of of of of Cinema and storytelling and characters I think it's it's okay maybe I think I do know how I make it I think it's always about um sort of following these things of the characters you know I think the colors the way you shoot the light I mean for me it's always about sort of following character and understanding character and translating character so um I wouldn't say I wouldn't I would make the same but I think it would be very like this one but I think there's something really different when I made this movie than now I mean there was a lot of hope when I made this film this film was made in 2002 and I think you remember what happened in 2002 it was the first time that Lulu was elected and I think this film really translates a sense of I think it was shot in 2001 and was released 2002 so there was a real sense it was finished in 2002 so there's a real sense of hope and of you know Liberation and of you know explosion and I think um you know no no need to go further here but you know it's sort of the opposite of what we're living in that country today so I think I would make it today I think it's important to make it no matter you know maybe I would make it with my phone but I think it would need to to be made but I don't think I would that freedom I don't think I would have it now I think I have a different kind of Freedom that freedom is a freedom that's very specific of a certain moment in time I think I'm not sure if I answered that question with Clarity and not even for myself but um yeah do we have another question from the floor I'm very curious about people who haven't seen this before like it would be really interesting to know good hello okay hi good evening I'm from Colombia I grew up devouring Brazilian culture uh I just wanted to tell you as an old photographer of film in black and white in dark rooms I think it's a like she said it's a work of poetry we work in theater and it's at each frame it's a piece of theater the the respect for the photography and the chiaroscuro it's almost like Caravaggio it's absolutely beautiful like they said it's so relevant and beautiful and it's just so alive they're so alive and when we work in cinematography today there's so much technical stuff and so much attention to oh his his face is not is not late enough there's not not enough quiero school there's not enough mystery and sometimes we lose the actors and their energy in all these remakes and retakes and the perfect lighting and in the meantime the story is a bit lost in that she said the Poetry of it the rawness the the human power of it so I just want to congratulate you well thank you to Infinity it's absolutely beautiful thank you um yeah thank you I think there's a question there and a question there hi um yeah the colors are so beautiful it was just uh like I felt like it was it was one probably one of the most um like intense like films I've seen in terms of just like the ebb and flow of emotion that you kind of go through um you're kind of being rocked back and forth between this like tumultuous like tension and love that I feel like we all like recognized to different degrees um my main question though was that all that footage at the end is that like real like foot like footage or because we made it to that point that I don't know like it because it was it was so texturally instant it was different from the initial perform the last performance and like but it all kept the same energy and I and you know it was magnificent I wasn't sure so yeah it's not it's not archival it's funny because we shot I think it was the scene that had the biggest number of extras I mean the whole film and there was a lot of you know people men dressed as women and you know drag queens it was a mess like in this theater it was a really beautiful mess in this theater in Rio and um it was really hard for me to shoot I felt like I wasn't capturing it and I remember it was a night shoot and so I got a friend who brought a Super 8 camera because I was feeling like what I was going to do on 35 I would I'll tell you about the 35 millimeter store in a minute but I was feeling like what I was going to do with this sort of format of the film was not going to do justice to the to the sort of explosion of life that there was in that place so I said you know what I'm going to cover myself I'm going to shoot this on Super 8 as well I don't know I don't remember if I shot it or someone helped me shoot it but so we had two different formats we had 35 insuperate so that much is interesting because it's I had that question once before so it's not it's not archival but it is a much more intimate way of switching that situation which was great and it wasn't done to look like archiver but it was just I just thought that was the best way to capture that scene you know in the texture and the energy and what was there uh so yeah it was a different format but it wasn't thought I mean I did it as a b plan you know but I kind of knew that that was going to be what I was going to use and um the other funny thing about this film is nobody nobody thought I could do it so at the end um we got this funny contract with one of the distrib the producers that we could not shoot this film on 16 because it was amateur you know that I had to shoot on 35 and I've always never wanted to do this on 35 you know because I thought 35 was was not the right format for this there was a lot of definition there so I started a lot of what this film was about was destroying what I was given so I had to shoot in 35 so okay so I'm going to do 35 but I'm gonna do a bleach bypass on the net on the negative and it was very dangerous it's a format where you don't put the fixator on the on the on the image so it was very chemically quite dangerous to do it in a lab that never had done it before maybe that had done it once but I kind of like the kick with it you know like I like the thrill of like not knowing what was going to happen the next day and how it would look um there was one other thing which was very crazy I could not I was not allowed to do more than two or three takes per shot because of the amount of negative in the beginning it was very hard but at the same time I think it's like every film has becomes a beast of its own so I think a lot of those things were very they were just part of what this film should have been really at the end um and I think to answer your question two I think it was the last it was the last days of the shoot like I think I had spent almost the negative I needed that I could spend so there was not a lot of cans left so the Super 8 was also a way to do it that I could um just have more footage so it was almost like a Vengeance you know you don't let me do this on 16 so don't Super 8 but at least the last scene you know yes you had a question there I appreciate how as a director you actually pull us into the film and talking about the energy of the actors was it intentional on your part to have it so intimate and bring us in because in a lot of the scenes the energy just goes and it seems like you just let it go you stood there as close as you could to be more intimate to the scene it was so I never worked with actors before this this is the first time I mean I did short films but they're quite experimental they were actors but this one was the first one that I needed to sort of take control of things and understand what performances were and I was very lucky to work with an actor who helped me prepare the actors the cast but more than anything what I was really interested here is that this is a guy who changed his name many times that was the first question about this film which was should this be a documentary right I always ask myself like when I'm looking at a subject you know how is the best way to go for it you know is it is it an essay or is it and I thought of making a documentary because I spent years researching about his life I mean I know I went to all the police archives in Rio I mean I you know I had I was really prepared when I started shooting um but you know the other thing that was very clear to me this is so the moment I decided to do a fiction was because he was fictionalizing his life all the time you know like so he was always he every time that he was arrested he changed his name because then he would like to be a first-time offender so he'll get less time in jail he's very you know brilliant man obviously uh and so I thought there was also this very interesting way of performer you know this this of Performing oneself and um to escape to reinvent oneself and I think the first thing that I decided to do when I had this friend that was helping me prepare the cast was let's just explore this and make this OTG this needs to be over the top like his life was over the top they call us over the top so there was no way the only thing you couldn't be as afraid and um and I look at the performances today I I don't know if I I don't know if I had I would have the cars to do that today to be honest with you because that was very free like I always remember in in all the scenes we rehearsed all the scenes as if we're doing a play you know so we read we read the script and then we did rehearsals um on a student and we did rehearsals on a um on location with costumes which was really really wonderful and so a lot of the scenes they completely changed because of the life they brought because of the way that they read the scene so for example the scene when they drink Coke in the bathroom it was a very car I mean it's not calm you know like because the guys are doing coke in the bathroom but like it was a more quiet scene but you know when they rehearsed I was tweaking them to go in different directions and and finding you know the color of it so I think it was um it was done in a way that um it was never supposed to be um naturalist it was always supposed to have an artificiality to it and it you know and to be theatrical in the sense of artificial really love constructed um and I think um when you ask me what I would do today I mean I don't know well maybe I would but it's the kind of things that you know you you you think three times before you do it but I think it would not have been fair to have done it otherwise it's like the colors that somebody mentioned here the colors um it was not because I thought it was beautiful to do a bleach bypass um solution which was to make it very contrast the character is very contrasted so I thought it was just coherent to make it as as it is made and I also the cast was fantastic because there was something about a mix between very well-known actors and seasoned actors like the guy who's the owner of the bar is one of the wonderful most wonderful Brazilian actors he's not with us anymore but in the woman who plays um who plays vittor is also wonderful incredible theater actor and then you know um hennachin was his first movie the woman who plays Marcel Laurita is one of my most beautiful actors of all time she's a woman who was really incredible so there was this mix and I think it was um tricky because there was like different notes how do you compose something with that so I just sort of pushed the volume up and I think they all went there and that's where they met so I think it was um but it was a deliberate decision to to just go you know and and the fight scenes are very badly done and I had no idea how to do them but I think that the fact that they are sort of done in almost Punk weight kind of um was what I could do there I know there's a question here but if I could just quickly ask you something which struck me um you know we were talking about the light and the color but also there was something about the sound design that really strong oh yeah so like uh in all the kind of intimate moments yeah there's always back there's always noise yeah and you know anyone who's lived in Brazil or been to Brazil you know what after living in Brazil for a long time I came back to Europe and I was like Christ it's quiet here like where's all the noise this is freaking me out like at night time yeah what this is so weird where's the noise and I was like watching that I was like you know this is really particular to Brazil yeah that kind of in those intimate moments and that collapsing of personal space because you're always aware of people and sociality all around you and I wanted to ask you you know you're a filmmakers who's lived and worked you know across the world but you know how much of Brazil is in this film and why is it important I think all of it I think this film was made so the sound yeah right so the sound was really wonderful I mixed this movie with I was very lucky to do posts in France and I'm so lucky because I mixed this movie with the guy who was totally I had a wonderful South designer and and a mixer who was just brilliant and he was he he really embraced I remember like the only mixing the the sort of beads when like hitting his chest and stuff I said just pump it up and he's like yes so he was like really like on the same trip that we were but the other thing besides this funny story was that um I think I made this film because I was living abroad for about 10 years so I didn't know yeah I left Brazil in 1988 I was living in New York and I made this film in 2001 so I started so this film is really a way for me to understand a country that I didn't really understand and also I come from a very different place I come from the Northeast it has nothing to do with Rio de Janeiro but for me the image of Brazil that one would negotiate when you're not in Brazil was the image of you know of of Rio and so I studied a lot about Rio entertainment what was really fascinating was that Rio was the place where after the abolition of slavery in 1880 in 1888 there was a huge migration you know of people that um had been freed and and they went there and there was this really and there was a it was a harbor it was like it was this really interesting place you know of things mixing it was a very musical place you know there was there was music and there was sound and there was like a kind of very porous and you know world where sound traveled in from meal is very important to construct the world off screen like I think not not not obviously not what you see is not what you hear but I think here was really important for me to sort of construct this pulsating place you know that it's always busy and there's always music somewhere and sometimes it's not music it's just percussion and you hear what people you know and I think it was also a way to to to translate class I think that the way that um it is also a way to translate class you know so for me it was all of this was um a really big learning experience about the history that I wasn't told about in our community that I didn't know about a culture like I did a lot of this and a lot of what I found again I said this tonight but it wasn't non-history books it was on a newspaper called it was called anoichi called the Knight which is a newspaper that covered all crime in Rio and I went to all the archives of that newspaper because that's the only place that you had anything about this this world you know and then um the police archives were fantastic because all that that beginning of the film when he is being told when you know this this voiceover for him it's not I didn't write I mean I could never write that you know that's brilliant and it's a literal transcription of a police archive that described him but for me it was a for me making this film was really a huge learning experience to understand you know what what is that part of the country how it became what it became its rich in this at a moment which was a really interesting moment it's a moment of Liberation you know this is this is 20 yeah a bit more than you know and he is you know he he fled and he comes from where not where I come from but close and he fled to Rio um so he's a living example of of that sort of vortex that video became at that time yeah you had a question down here at the front yes my question is actually around the needle drops um is there on what the needle drops the songs uh your film is extremely Musical and I think a lot of the songs help carry the narrative forward so I wanted to ask if you had some these songs in mind when you were writing the script or if they kind of came afterwards I did interesting also because when I was saying about this newspaper and I was saying about the police archives the other source of history that one does have from that moment is the lyrics of these songs you know that's what poetry that's how poetry got published in poetry this was produced by you know start of society that was completely invisible but that you know it's like pop culture right like it's pop music so it was a very so I did a lot of research on lyrics and um it was very yeah we did we did a choice a very clear choice of um the songs where they were and what did he perform and there is a biography of um there's a biography of Madame Satan that was published in the 70s and a lot of the stuff that's there he he had mentioned of this song so it was not only songs that I like but also things that I think were dear to him it is an incredible soundtrack it is a musical in a way right when I look at it so it is yeah you want it to be like a like a pop star you know it's like it's like Bowie on something you know anyway it's much more interesting than boy actually but but it is this guy who is a performer you know and he wanted to sing and he wanted to you know play different roles and so on so because there is actually quite a lot of Bowie in your work though isn't there like there's a bit yeah um yes question up here on that yeah Sylvester um so I had a question I mean the film is so visually striking and powerful and unique I want to talk about the narrative structure though and this the storyline you talk about the amount of research that you did yeah I feel like a more traditional biopic would have raced through everything you have actually as the the the you know your whole story to get to the carnival to get to the visual of the carnival if you build to it in a way um and I I feel like there's a that that choice is somehow connected also the framing of the police you know um the mugshots because there's a there's a the framing is about the imposition of meaning the imposition of identity and then the struggle to yeah can you talk about that the framing yes absolutely and then also just why you chose to focus on this part the emergence of yeah that's a great question listen um as I said before it took me about eight to nine years to make this movie so there was a lot of thinking and a lot of um processing to do but one thing that was really hard was yeah the traps of a biopic you know and I don't believe you I believe in BIO books but I don't think Cinema is at all the place to do biographies you know like it should be about a certain moment in time and it was very hard to choose that moment um so I'll say three things I did shoot his um his childhood but I didn't use it it didn't make sense to use it and I think ultimately the script is um the way that I thought of the script was well I mean really what interests me in this character is Rage I'm really interested in Rage as a transformative force a political transformative so you know enforce and um and it was not until I understood that that the script so the script had like I don't know 16 18 versions and it was the beginning so it was like how do you call this in English from from birth to doesn't they like a way that you say birth to grave right the yeah so it was it was a bit like that and then I started to narrow it down every town and so there were Clear Choices okay being very open here I don't think I don't think the script of this movie it is it is a mess and it is a mess um because I didn't know what exactly I was writing but I think that the reason the film works is because of of oops oh yeah contact lens problem that's where the film is a bit out of focus it's not it's not a joke it's true it's true I don't see without lenses so I thought it was interesting to shoot out of focus um but this grip right so yeah I think this script is truly it's I was located tonight and I was just thinking wow this is not they're not fighting you know we're not shouting you know like what is the story moving so I don't think it's a script that's constructed um classically and I think it was because of the deconstruction of it throughout the process and I think a lot of as in many as in as I think in almost every film I've made so far um it is in the editing you know so I think we really found so I don't think there's a structure like that I don't think I don't think you can identify like plot point one like a classic structure right I don't think you can identify that it's almost like it's I don't know how to say it but it's this force of life which is I mean this film resides 99 on Lazaro I mean really I mean it is it is the force that's there that makes the film exist and so I got away with it because I think that there is such an explosion of Life on his performance that then I got away with story but then there's a minimal of story that you have so yes so the framing was how do you undo everything I read about this man was um pathologizing it was criminalizing him it was constantly trying to erase him into to kill him so I think for me it was the conceptually speaking was understanding that rage was his motor and I was very in you know the other thing too that I think it's important to say I lived in this country for many years in New York uh in a you know it was very different New York than it was now but it was the first time and I think because of the civil rights movement and the friends I had it was the first time that I understood what confrontation was I think Brazil is a country that is very much avoiding confrontation at all costs and I think what I really was really really high on this guy was because I think he was like he was confronting very very you know frontally what he defected you know it's very clear what he says in the movie there's a scene for me which is very emblematic what he says you know it's it's I think I was born wrong you know and that's why I'm so you know that's why I have so much rage and I need to get it out and I need to confront it so I think everything was in the editing room there was all these great scenes but we put them together it didn't really it didn't really tell but I think at the moment I understood that the emotional line of the story is about you know him trying to break through and say you know if you can't be here why can I like why I can't you know like the moment he goes into that club for me and and that is what's that is what's at every that's what's happened at every scene but I and and and also it's this effort I don't know it's the the world is like it's a little tacky it's like you're humanizing but you actually to to render homage to his complexity into his intelligence and to his talent by that framing but that's something that was not at all on the script um it was something that happened after I saw I shot that scene very intuitively that's like you know it's a white sheet and he's in front of it um and then I I wrote you know and I didn't write as I told you but I brought the voice over later so I think it's interesting also how much you can get away and I also think that it could not be a minute longer you know because there's a moment that it does get repetitive and I think it's the Brilliance of his performance that doesn't allow it to fall apart I mean I'm being a bit cruel with the film now but you know it's it is I'm saying this because I think it was it was also very interesting to give up on the idea of by by of biopic biopic is just I never saw one that I actually like because I think it's not the medium for it and it was very interesting because I fought so much to fight to shoot his childhood and at the end it was also for me an exercise as a filmmaker it didn't work you know the things that you shoot and and I think it's important it was important you know the producers would kill me to hear this but because it was a lot of money to travel to the Northeast and spend four days shooting but I needed you know maybe that's something I wouldn't do now you know like I wouldn't do that I would be a bit more rigorous about like but I actually made their life hell because I said we need the childhood we need to go there so I went and shot but I think the biggest lesson is like it didn't it didn't really it didn't really make sense so it was a script it was very much written and the woman who edited the movie is a is a friend a very close friend who had been editing all my shorts and um so we're very very close and I sort of understood you know what it took but um but yeah story-wise I think it's full of flaws and I don't think that causality doesn't really work in this film you know so it's more an accumulation or explosions I would say that defines the storyline um and again I think I got away with it because you have such a brilliant performance that um then there we go but but and maybe that should be the mistake of making it today because I think I probably would want to package it in a way that it's clear and the story is clear you know that's how to unlearn that it's also something that's quite difficult do we have perhaps another question or a comment I just want to say it's blown away by the film just absolutely amazing good so you're just I hate to use Shakespeare but do you like you're gonna be revered for a long time so my question is um how is it received in Brazil yeah at that time and then today yeah and then I know the story of Mario Franco yeah a bit I don't know if this is the venue to talk about her and what's going on today but I'm kind of curious about her story and I want to learn more about you know this context and her life and so on so thank you um it was received it was it was very strange because this movie played it opened in Khan and it was it was the Junior movie like the senior movie was city of God you know it was like seed of God and then I was like the side track and um and I say this very openly I was very shocked when I got I so I I was super excited you know in my tuxedo and all that like going to Khan and so I remember going home to kind of get dressed up you know I put my bow tie and get ready to go to the screeny and then I I had like a ticket and the ticket it said this film can hurt the sensibility of views and it's like but then you know but on the other on the other big room was like city of God with like thousands of people being killed you know like not thousands but like hundreds so I and but they also had the same sticker and I'm just trying to figure out oh wow like you know love is dangerous you know like why is this happening here but okay no I'm not silly I knew I would have something like that but not to that extent so that was the first sort of kick I had I said okay and I actually saw it today again there's a lot of sacks in this film right I didn't know like there was a lot of sex and I at the time I thought there was a little bit of sex but I didn't know there was a lot of sex you know there's a lot of fun as well you know sexiness is so fun and um and so I had this sort of red flag in Khan and then when I when I went to Brazil this is what happened it was also a different time it was a very different time I mean if you want to talk about Brazil we can spend hours and we don't have that time but you know it's the country to hold the biggest rate of religious conversion is Brazil today like so it's becoming a highly conservative place but at the time what was interesting and I think this is how I got away with it obviously like you know also in the premiere and also in the other premieres you know people left today I think was the first day that people didn't leave but people did leave you know in every screen and I say I don't go to watch my movies but I went to the screening I didn't sit there watching but I was like just outside seeing what's happening so there was people leaving there was about 10 15 of the audiences that went in and they left but at the same time I think the reason I got away with it is it it is a real life character so I think that the fact that it was a real-life character there also there was a real thirst for like an afro-brazilian character there were no movies you know there was a movie made about this guy in 1973 there was a couple of movies made in the 70s but then there was nothing so I think there was a real hunger for it um and I think I really think it's because also he was um he was he this is a it's not a true story but it's inspired on a true story so it that allowed and he's not known in the country but the name is so fascinating Madam said they know like oh what is this so people kind of knew about him it was a very sort of underground figure but I think that um all this to say that despite of this trauma had income it was really well received it was very well it was beautifully embraced and I think as one of the movies that I've made that has the biggest number of viewers really and uh but like what would happen today I don't know it's very complex you know today first of all for those who go to Cinemas are really rich people so you know it's a really sort of deluxe experience so I think it's such a different moment and also you know it's a different country it's a different time in the world so it's um yeah I think I was just very um lucky to make it you know it's not lucky but I think it there was a Synergy there there was very important when it was made and what it meant perhaps we have time for one last question yeah yes please you mentioned a film in 1973 was that black Orpheus no no because I was thinking about that yeah although that was much more in the streets yeah no I think black office is from the 50s ah 1956 I think and it's it's interesting because it's such an emblematic film but it's not a Brazilian film it's a French film it's a song by made by a French director I Was Made Management in a movie called 1997 it's called but the the Bandit queen or something like this which is also a movie that's based on um the same character really interesting beautiful wild 1970s uh movie this is this is this is for kids compared to what the 1973 was it was like it was great thank you well it's a different kind of rock and roll I'm a different kind of somebody so you know but it it was it's a movie called Bandit queen and I think I've never had a double bill I think it would be really great to do a double bill um with this movie because I think it's also a movie that needs to be seen and it needs to be exposed and celebrated well I think we've kind of come to the end of the time we've got um you know it's been wonderful to be here with you as Kareem said like in person it's so wonderful to have this kind of convivial experience once again yeah so I just like to say thank you to the UCLA film archival Organization for being here with us today thank you thank you thank you [Applause]