LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD "GOLDEN CAMERA 300"
Walter CARVALHO
The Brazilian film has a great and famous tradition with many significant film artists incorporated in the Brazilian Cinematography, making it one of the leading in the entire Latin-American Cinema, hence acquiring a prestige position in the entire world film art. We in Europe, in addition to following the great America cinematography, have been naturally dedicated to what was happening in the individual European national cinematography however, as dedicated followers of the general film art, with all due respect and attention we acknowledged all the films coming from the distant South American Continent, as expected, with the help of each individual national cinematography among which the Brazilian had the leading position.
In my youth, when the world film was constantly present on the domestic cinema repertoire, when we saw the most artistic and the most personal films on specialized programs, precisely in the time when Italy launched its Neorealism, introducing the post-military spirit of the new Italian Cinema and somewhat later when the French inaugurated the world renowned New Film Wave from the beginning of the 1960s, the distant Brazilian Cinematography presented its CINEMA NOVO (inaugurated with the Manifesto “Aesthetic of Hunger” in 1965, written by Glauber ROCHA (1939-1981)) to Europe. We received his films with admiration, becoming fanatic followers of this cult author. In my early phase as a critic I was infatuated and influenced by the genius of ROCHA, whose cult anthological film ANTONIO DAS MORTES (1969, for which Rocha won the Best Director Award in Cannes) became my inevitable film “food”, dedicating tens of texts-analyses and critic reviews.
The reminiscence of the clearly encaptured memory that this was the time we discovered the new Brazilian Cinema, understanding the dimension of its meaning to the world film, ANTONIO DAS MORTES (the last of the trilogy), was a confirmation of Rocha’s talent, announced in his previous films:BARRAVENTO (1961) and the two of the trilogy: BLACK GOD WHITE DEVIL (1964), TERRA EM TRANS (1967). Thus, with the appearance of the new Brazilian Cinema in the 1960s which coincided with its affiliate film, new wave genesis in France followed by Europe, we realized that those were inevitable processes of interweaving, despite the fact that each one is borne in its own tradition and cultural heritage. In Rocha we recognized the native Brazilian Alberto CAVALCANTI (1897-1982), who started his early phase precisely in Europe/France, becoming a part of the French cinematography. Moreover, Brazil brought us the films of Carlos DIEGUES, Bruno and Lima BARRETO, Nelson PERREIRA DOS SANTOS or Ruy GUERRA and Hektor BABENCO right until the leader of the latest Brazilian film wave initiated in the middle of the 1980s, Walter SALLES started by his namesake, this years laureat for the Life Achievment Award – Walter CARVALHO with his world expedition with a line of films that have already become anthological for the latest Brazilian cinematographic phase.
In the course of Walter Carvahlo’s rich career there is a core connection with his elder brother-director, writer, producer, editor and actor – Vladimir Carvalho (1931) who introduces him to the film art as a cameraman in the film O PAIS DE SAO SARUE in 1971. Then Walter Carvahlio goes on to work as an assistant to, at that time, the more experienced cinematographers Dib Lutfi, José Medeiros and Fernando Duarte (reminder: as part of the Documentary Program VERITE NUOVO we are screening the documentary feature film of the director Cristina Leal on the oppinion of the 6 leading Brazilian cinematographers in the form of portraits: Dib Lutfi, Fernando Duarte, Edgar Moura, Pedro Farkas, Mario Carneiro and the youngest among them Walter Caravalho), only to have his debut as an independent cinematographer in 1973 in the feature BOI DE PRATA, director Augusto Ribeiro Jr. Walters family connection continues with his super talented son Lula CARVALHIO, who, naturally, springs from the camera school of his great father, who showed him all the secrets of the camera and the film photography (Lula was first assistant camera to his father in several of his most significant films as a cinematographer: TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER and BEHIND THE SUN, both shot in 2001, followed by CARANDIRU, and SUELY IN THE SKY in 2006) only to become independent and show his glorious talent in his latest film selected in this year’s competition ELITE SQUAD, the director debut of José Padilha.
Walter Carvalhom, cinematographer, photographer, director, writer, producer was born in 1947 in the city of Joao Pessoa, in one of the 26 states of the Brazilian Federation Paraiba.
He moves to Rio de Janeiro in 1968 to study graphic design. In his rich career as a cinematographer he has shoot over 60 feature films, and directed 4 that have also brought him numerous festival awards. Those are the films MOACIR, BRUTAL ART (2005, also a writer, a documentary portrait of the bizarre self-taught painter Moacir Dias, where Carvalho with his background in graphics depicts the world of the unscholarly painter who paints what he feels intuitively, according to the understanding of the psycho-analysts like “The images we see before us are different than the images we see within”; the second documentary feature where Carvalho is both the writer and the co-director with Joao Jardim is JANELA DA ALMA (2001) , the film that brought the awards for best film in Brazil and Latin America as well as the award for best cinematographer; the other 2 Carvalho’s films as a director are: CAZUZA - O TEMPO NÃO PÁRA (2004, documentary feature portrait, box-office hit in Brazil, co-directed with Sandra Werneck, inspired by the biography of the famous rock-star Não Pára who died of AIDS in 1990) and LUNARIO PERPETUO(2003). The most interesting and the most symbolical in the connection with his own son Lula is their latest feature project, the Brazilian-Hungarian coproduction, BUDAPEST, where the father Walter is the director, and the son Lula the cinematographer. The film was shot in Budapest (the film will have its premiere in February 2009, possibly as part of the Berlin Film Festival), based on the novel of Chico Buarque de Hollanda, for Jose Costa, Brazilian ghost-writer, whose plane has to make an emergency landing to Budapest upon returning from the ghost-writers convention.
Walter CARVALHO is the youngest laureate for the Life Achievement Award “Golden Camera 300” and according to his opus thus far most definitely deserves to enter the club of the magnificent of our festival. We are especially proud that Walter is the winner of our greatest award, even more, as he is deeply connected to the IFCF Manaki Brothers as an absolute champion to date with his 2 “Golden Camera 300”: in 1998 for the film CENTRAL DO BRASIL and in 2002 for the film TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER and a “Silver Camera 300” in 1996 for the film FOREIGN LAND. All three films are characterized by the great mastery of the artist-cinematographer Walter Carvalho, each in its own way. Now, let us start chronologically in the manner of appearance of each of the awarded films on our festival.
Carvalho’s great discovery in wider world frameworks together with the directors team Walter Salles-Daniela Thomas was the film FOREIGN LAND (1996, debitant baptism of the director duo, who, after a long break, appeared in this year’s competition in Cannes with the equally excellent film LINHA DE PASSE). FOREIGN LAND describes the destiny of two young people forced to exile together with other 800 000 young Brazilians as a result of the crisis in Brazil after 1990. Paco, lives in a suburb of Sao Paolo, his life is filled with hopes and dreams, Alex, a young Brazilian emigrant to Portugal. Navigating back and forth between their stories in Sao Paolo and Lisbon, the directors develop the dynamics of the interwoven actions as an example of a road-movie that Carvalho gives both visual and documentary shape in black and white photography with an adequately camera set up, but at the same time hinting the personal crisis and life of the young people on the verge of existence, fused into a common possible love as a desired happiness.
From the black and white photography as an expression, Walter Carvalho reaches his peak in the two master-pieces of the colour-photography and the cinematographers perfection, the two Golden Camera 300 laureates: CENTRAL DO BRASIL (1998) and TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER (2002).
In the Golden Bear winner in Berlin – CENTRAL DO BRASIL, the director Salles shows the drama of a woman – Dora, former teacher who writes and sends letters for the illiterate travelers at the Central Railway Station in Rio de Janeiro, and Josué, a nine year old child, who, after the accidental death of his young mother, wins the love of Dora who takes him with her in the adventure to the Brazilian Southwest in search of his father.Here is where the cinematographer Carvalho achieves full expression, depicting first and foremost the documentary original atmosphere in the great authentic railway station with the passengers of the city with several million people. In the second part when Dora and the child are on their way in search of the father, Carvalho creates an even more effective documentary atmosphere of discovering Brazil and its people, as a longing for his roots especially in the night sequence of the carnival with exquisitely rich visual and cinematographic images as a certain national hallmark, expressed in the magic of the illuminations, the décor as history and encompassing everything as a certain catharsis, individually with Dora’s spontaneous love for the little Josué, and ethnically, expressing the spirit of the people in life’s whirlpool. Carvalho builds sequences as a visual drama with pearl-like-passages, like the marvelous movement of the camera, done truly effectively like a passage through a wagon.
Walter Carvalho, in his second Golden Camera 300 winner LAVOURA ARCAICA/TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER, as a photographer and cinematographer develops his striking potential to previous unseen perfectionism, admired even by his colleagues, acknowledging his superb mastery. He proves to be an invaluable and decisive creative cooperator to the debutant director Luiz Fernando Carvalho (probably one of the great Carvalho lineage). The film was based best-seller novel Lavoura Arcaica written by Raduan Nassar for a Lebanese family of immigrants in the Brazil countryside. The director and writer Luiz Carvalho builds the epic saga intertwining the burning issues and relations like love, incest, homosexuality through the prism of the family ties and conflicts, in the process focusing on the synthesized parable for the “prodigal son”, giving rise to the original title LAVOURA ARCAICA adapted as a relation to the son TO THE LEFT OF THE FATHER. In such a dramatic epic coupling, shot on the original locations from the novel, the virtuoso cinematographer Walter Carvalho invested his entire creative energy, creating richly dynamic sequences with a gallery of impressive personalities, an expressive spectrum, with his dancing camera and painter photographic details depicted as photographic diamond breath taking parts. In this film, it seams as if Walter is building a rare visual symphony for the world film with his entire love and dedication to the photography as a delicate cinematographic master-piece.
From the cooperation between the director Walter Salles and Walter Carvalho as his creative partner-cinematographer, we should undoubtedly include the film ABRIL DESPEDACADO/BEHIND THE SUN (2001). Based on the novel BROKEN APRIL written by the Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, the film shows the chronicles of the blood revenge spiral of the two families in the rural countryside of Brazil in 1910. Carvalho builds this extremely impregnated and tense atmosphere through the appropriate visual drama in depicting the central characters thus emphasizing their curse and tragedy, to exist on the thin line between life and death, with the fatalism and fanaticism leading their lives to agony, for the modern life as a longing for the peace and liberty.
In the two films written by the director Karim Ainouz: MADAME SATÃ (2002) and SUELY IN THE SKY, in the first, through the portrait of the transvestite João Francisco dos Santos called Madame Satã and the second, through the young mother Hermila who is forced to raffle her own body leaving Sao Paolo – Carvalho, equally effective, depicts the authenticity of live following the drama of these, both distant and close personalities, united together by the common denominator of prostitution.
Carvalho is the closest to his documentary sensibility as a director, expressed in the abovementioned films directed in the beginning and the course of the 2000s in the fierce prison drama CARANDIRU(2003) directed and co-written by the experiences older generation Hector Babenco. Carandiru is the name of the notorious prison in Sao Paolo, with over 2500 prisoners, 111 of which were killed in cold blood by the special police unit, the Riot Squad, because of the riot in the prison.
After that cruel event the Brazilian government ordered for the prison to be blown up so as to eliminate the crime scene, which was condemned by the world. Babenco reconstructs the events in the prison as the memories of the authentic prison doctor Drauzio Varella, Carvalho depicts the original ambience in a nearly documentary convincing manner, bringing forth a gallery of prison characters with all the characteristics of that microcosm, the world in a nutshell, drug addicts, homosexuals, killers, on the side of the prisoners and the guards on the other side, a certain prison city functioning according to its cruel norms, full of violence and fear of being the victim of the ever-present negative energy.
Walter Carvalho has over 60 feature films in his portfolio as a cinematographer, with about 40 won awards on the festivals in Brazil and the world, he is preparing his fifth film as a director BUDAPEST in the peak of his creative energy. As our youngest laureate of the Life Achievement, he has the objective possibility and the openness to further continue creating new films, as a leading cinematographer with whom is a privilege to work or as a director that further enriches his creative, artistic personality. I would like to wish him good health and many more new films that will inspire and astonish us.
Blagoja KUNOVSKI – DORE