From November 13th to 27th, Porto Alegre hosts the eighth edition of Cine Esquema Novo (CEN), the festival that has been moving between cinema and the visual arts since 2003. With free admission and in different venues (Sala PF Gastal and Galeria Lunara, from Usina do Gasômetro; Gallery of the Ecarta Foundation; and Auditorium and Gallery of the Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre), Cine Esquema Novo 2014 exhibits and debates hybrid, multiple and open to new contextualizations, coming from Brazil and abroad. Thanks to this approach, and in line with a “make cinema” mentality that is increasingly taking center stage, the festival reflects a striking feature of much of the authorial cinema produced in the 21st century: the definitive expansion of its symbolic representation to different contexts of display and enjoyment of the moving image.
Opening and opening highlights
The festival opens this Thursday, 11/13, with the screening at 8:30 pm of the classic of the underground cinema Normal Love (1963), directed by Jack Smith (USA). A pillar of American performance art and aesthetic experimentation, Smith influenced Andy Warhol and is part of the origins of the New York scene of the mid-20th century, in addition to being one of the main responsible for the establishment of the no-budget, trash and contemporary cinema and audiovisual camp. A reference name, rarely shown in Brazil, and with this lush and never officially finalized film, it kicks off a season of 15 days of CEN programming in Porto Alegre.
Other highlights from the early days of CEN 2014, in addition to the start of the Competitive Exhibition Brazil in the galleries and cinema hall, involve the reproduction of the expanded cinema classic “Line Describing a Cone” (1973), by Anthony McCall (USA) (sixth) 11/14 from 9:30 pm at Sala PF Gastal); and the lecture by the Forum Expanded curator of the Berlin Festival, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, on Saturday (11/15) starting at 10 am in the Auditorium of the Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre.
Program Highlights
Every day, from the 14th until the 27th of November, CEN offers permanent video installations in the morning and in the afternoon in 4 spaces in the city: Ecarta, Lunara galleries (Usina do Gasômetro) and the Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre, which also receives a work in the Auditorium. The Usina PF Gastal Room offers cinema sessions: every day (except Mondays) at 6:30 pm, 8:00 pm and 9:30 pm. Always with free admission, CEN 2014 is divided into 4 major lines of programming:
Competitive Exhibition Brazil - A dip in the convergence / divergence of cinema and visual arts in contemporary Brazilian production. An expanded cinema, which takes works from art galleries to cinemas and “cinema films” to exhibition spaces. Unpublished features in Porto Alegre, alongside short films and audiovisual works recognized in both film festivals and art biennials.
Mostra CEN + Arsenal Berlin - The main archive of films by artists from Europe opened its doors to a curatorial residence of the Cine Esquema Novo. Facing more than 10,000 works, the focus turned to four names that, together, trace a historical arc representative of audiovisual creation in the last decades: works by Jack Smith, Matthias Müller, Ken Jacobs and Isabell Spengler will occupy spaces in the city for the first time turn.
Forum Ways of Seeing / Forum Expanded - Held since 2006 within the Berlin Film Festival and dedicated to works that move between cinema and the visual arts, Forum Expanded was the exhibition window for the latest works by Guy Maddin, Bruce LaBruce and Ken Jacobs in Europe, in addition to having regularly received works from names like Harun Faroki and Jonas Mekas. Porto Alegre will receive some of the most interesting works ever exhibited at Forum Expanded, the most experimental and disruptive division of Berlinale, in programs set up exclusively for Brazil by its own curator, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus.
Cinéma Copains Residence - The duo of artist-researchers Minze Tummescheit and Arne Hector, co-founders of LaborBerlin, make their first foray into Brazil. In addition to an artistic residency in Porto Alegre, the duo exhibits works from their trajectory and their most recent work in progress, Fictions & Futures # 2.
Another important aspect of the program is the CEN Lectures, whose free registration is already open through the festival's website:
- 11/15: Directly from Germany, the Curator of the Expanded Forum of the Berlinale / Berlin Film Festival, Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, talks about “How can contemporary film festivals create a public discourse and debate about cinema?”
- 11/22: The duo of cinéma copains artists (Arne Hector and Minze Tummescheit) comments on their ongoing project Fictions and Futures # 2, which includes images of Brazil thanks to their ongoing artistic residency in Rio Grande do Sul.
- 11/22: Two of the four members of CEN, Jaqueline Beltrame and Gustavo Spolidoro, comment on the curatorial plunge of the festival in the collection of Arsenal Berlin, one of the largest depositories of artist films in Europe.
- 26/11: CEN hosts a debate on the possibilities of audiovisual exhibition on Brazilian public TVs.
Special sessions
CEN 2014 is completed with special sessions of three films: the rare “O Jardim das Espumas” (1970), a cult classic recently restored by Luiz Rosemberg Filho; “Pierrot Lunaire” (2014), the wild adaptation of the legend of pierrot and Colombian, through the melodramatic work of the same name Arnold Schoenberg, directed by the Canadian Bruce LaBruce; and the latest work by one of CEN's favorites, Andrea Tonacci: “Já Visto Jamais Visto” (2013), which closes the festival on 27/11.
Juri André Severo, Marina Ludemann and Marcus Mello
# GRAND PRIZE CINE ESQUEMA NOVO 2014:
What We Do With Our Woes
by Arthur Tuoto (PR)
60 min, 01/2014
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the work of reframing appropriate texts and images, taking the viewer to a political reflection on the contemporary world through the form of a powerful film-essay, the jury confers the Grand Prize Cine Esquema Novo 2014 for the film “What we do with the Our Woes ”by Arthur Tuoto.
5 AWARDS OF FREE CHOICE:
Batguano
by Tavinho Teixeira (PB)
74 min, 01/2014
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the irreverent and at the same time melancholy deconstruction of two icons of Pop culture, which gives rise to a series of reflections of an existential nature, the CEN 2014 jury awards the film “Batguano” by Tavinho Teixeira.
Zeljka's Winter
by Gustavo Beck (Brazil / Croatia / Denmark)
20 min, 11/2012
Justification of the Jury for the award:
By the use of audiovisual language in the construction of a work capable of showing the feeling of strangeness in relation to an unknown landscape, at the same time that it leaves latent (or, in suspension) issues related to the complexity and scope of inter-subjective relations, the jury of the CEN 2014 rewards Gustavo Beck's film “O Inverno de Zeljka”.
The Mysterious Death of Pearl
of Guto Parente (CE)
62 min, 2014
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the efficient appropriation of the codes of the cinema of genre, triggered to create a fascinating plot that works as a metaphor for the displacement of the protagonist, the jury of CEN 2014 awards the film “The Mysterious Death of Pearl” by Guto Parente.
Our Traits
by Rafael Spínola (RJ)
4min, 06/2013
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the exciting rescue of an old family memory, associated with the recovery of an image reproduction support that was also in the past, the CEN 2014 jury awards the film “Nosso Traços” by Rafael Spínola.
Periscope
by Kiko Goifman (SP)
86 min, 09/2013
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the performance game established between the protagonists and the director, placed at the service of a complex reflection on identity and behavior, the CEN 2014 jury awards the film “Periscope” by Kiko Goifman.
# TVE / RS ACQUISITION AWARD:
In the Traveler's Heart
de Distruktur - Melissa Dullius & Gustavo Jahn (Lithuania / Germany / Brazil)
20 min, 04/2014
Justification of the Jury for the award:
For the enigmatic staging that moves elements of a typically Brazilian audiovisual tradition to a foreign context, the CEN 2014 jury confers the TVE acquisition award for the film “No Coração do Viajante” by Distruktur (Gustavo Jahn & Melissa Dullius).
