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A FILM BY GABRIEL MASCAROBrazil / 2014 / 77mins / Portuguese / Color / Hd / 5.1 / 1:1.85
SALES & FESTIVALS
FiGa/Br Films
Cell: +1 323 229 9816
www.figafilms.com
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Desvia Produções
Tel: +55 81 9236 9287
www.desvia.com.br
PUBLIC RELATIONS
Claudia Tomassini & Associates
Cell: +39 334 307 5056
www.claudiatomassini.com
(AUGUST WINDS)
STORY LINE In a small coastal village
in Brazil, the month of
August brings high tides, strong winds and the arrival of a researcher
registering the sound of the trade winds. His arrival coincides with a
surprise discovery that takes two of the village’s young inhabitants,
Shirley and Jeison, on a journey that confronts them with the poetic
duel between life and death, loss and memory, the wind and the sea.
SYNOPSIS Shirley has left the big city to live
in a small seaside town and look
after her elderly grandmother. She drives a tractor on a local coconut
plantation, loves rock music and wants to be a tattoo artist. She feels
trapped in the tiny coastal village. She is involved with Jeison, who also
works on the coconut farm and who free dives for lobster and octopus
in his spare time. During the month of August, when tropical storms
pound the coastline, a researcher registering the sound of the trade
winds emanating from the Intertropical Convergence Zone arrives in
their village. The high tides and the growing winds mark the following
days of the village and a surprise discovery takes Shirley and Jeison
on a journey that confronts them with the duel between life and death,
loss and memory, the wind and the sea.
THE DIRECTOR Gabriel Mascaro
was born in Recife
(Brazil) in 1983, where he still resides and works. Spanning cinema and
the visual arts, his work has been shown at the Guggenheim, Barcelona
Museum of Contemporary Art, MoMA Documentary Fortnight, Athens
and the São Paulo Biennale. He has written and directed four feature
documentaries and two shorts that have screened at important film
festivals including Rotterdam (IFFR), Amsterdam (IDFA), Oberhausen,
Clermont Ferrand, Leipzig, Copenhagen (CPH:DOX), Visions du Rèel,
Buenos Aires (Bafici), Miami, Cartagena and others. His work challenges
the line between documentary and fiction and explores the negotiation of
power relationships in their most diverse forms. August Winds is his first
feature fiction.
ABOUT
FILMOGRAPHYVENTOS DE AGOSTO August Winds, 2014, Brazil, 77’, fiction, HD
DOMÉSTICA Housemaids, 2012, Brazil, 75’, documentary, HD
A ONDA TRAZ O VENTO LEVA Ebb & Flow, 2012, Brazil/Spain, 25’,
documentary, HD
AV. BRASILIA TEIMOSA Defiant Brasilia, 2010, Brazil, 85’, documentary, HD
AS AVENTURAS DE PAULO BRUSCKY The Adventures of Paulo Bruscky, 2010,
Brazil, 20’, machinima short, HD
UM LUGAR AO SOL High-Rise, 2009, Brazil, 70’, documentary, HD
KFZ-1348, 2008, Brazil, 85’, documentary, 35mm
GABRIEL MASCARO
Q - What was the trigger for this film? Where did the idea come from?
GM - A few years ago, during a journey along the coast of
Pernambuco, northeast Brazil, I came across several
abandoned mansions that had been destroyed by rising sea levels. We
started to do some research into the phenomenon and how, in less than
30 years, beachside paradises had been turned to rubble and ruin by the
sea. We discovered a cemetery that was being engulfed by the sea and
struck me as a very powerful image. With this in mind a first treatment
began to take shape.
I started to write about abandonment, memory, loss, possession, the
waves, the sun, the salt, and the brick and mortar of the ruins. I felt,
however, that my challenge was how to create images out of something
that is invisible: the driving force of the wind. This apparent impossibility
spurred my interest. I discovered the Dutch documentary filmmaker
INTERVIEW WITH
DIRECTOR, CINEMATOGRAPHER & CO-WRITER
Joris Ivens who made his first work about the wind in 1965, “Pour Le
Mistral“. In his last film, “A Tale of The Wind“, Ivens, with grey curly hair,
appears asserting that to film the impossible is the best thing in life. This
influenced me greatly and in August Winds I incorporated a character who
I play in the film, a researcher who obsessively records the sounds and
reverberations of the winds of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
The project ended up becoming a film about what remains, what is
transitory, the languid passing of time and the cyclical nature of life. The
symbolism of the wind pervasive, propelling a narrative that is permeable
and free.
Q - What do the August winds represent in the film?
GM – In the film the August winds refers to the winds that exist
around the Intertropical Convergence Zone, more commonly
know as the trade winds. They have a strong identity and are historically
significant. They have a distinct sound that is unforgettable. For me, it
represents an inescapable and perpetual force of nature that imposes
itself on the region. I chose to focus on the month of August as here in the
Northeast of Brazil it is the month of the year that the wind is strongest,
joining forces with high tides to create the most damage of the year. As
such, turning this invisible force more palpable.
Q - How did you work with the actors?
GM – With the exception of Shirley, the lead character who
wants to be a tattoo artist, none of the actors in the film
are professionals and are all from the small village where the film was
shot. We went to the village and spread the word that we were looking for
people to act in the film. Nearly all the inhabitants turned up for the tests,
except Geová, who plays Jeison. Two days later he came to look for me,
apologizing for having missed the tests and asking if there was a part in
the film for a singer. I asked him to sing a song to the camera. As soon as
he finished I invited him to be Jeison.
In the original script there was quite a bit of dialogue written for the non-
actors and we worked with some improvisation exercises and studied the
scenes carefully.
With Dandara, who plays Shirley, it was a very different process. Initially,
Shirley ‘s character was very small and we were only going to film her
for two days. She ended up filming twenty. She spent time living in the
house where her on-screen grandmother (Maria) lived. It was then that we
understood how this character would react in the environment and could
be incorporated into the film to represent an external reality. Dandara
spent a week helping Maria go to the toilet, preparing her food, putting
her to bed, getting her blankets when she was cold, listening to her
stories. Very soon Maria was calling Dandara her granddaughter without
distinguishing between reality and fiction. When these boundaries are
broken, what is real, flourishes, and what is not, becomes real.
Q - In what conditions did you shoot?
GM – We filmed in the month of August. As such the filming was
naturally marked by the presence of the wind. We filmed with
a small team, with no rigid film schedule allowing us to shoot scenes
that emerged spontaneously, organically, integrating the day-to-day
reality of the village and its surroundings. To some degree the narrative
was invisible to us, the climatic factors, the surroundings, the wind, were
largely responsible for the encounters that we see on screen.
Q - You photographed as well as directed the film. How was that?
GM – I accumulated roles in this film: director, writer,
cinematographer, at times actor. I had a dynamic and very
personal involvement in the filming. We were a tiny, intimate crew and
everyone did a bit of everything. We were very concentrated, lodged in a
house very close to where we were shooting. We edited every day after
shooting. For three weeks we didn’t stop. The most challenging part of this
film was trying to find the right path to follow given the permeability of the
narrative and the new possibilities that opened up everyday we filmed.
Q - You come from a documentary background, although you have
often challenged the boundaries between the two genres in your
documentaries. AUGUST WINDS is your first fiction film, what defines
it as such and how does it draw on your previous experiences?
GM – I prefer not to talk about fiction and documentary as
distinct. All of my previous work as a documentary filmmaker
and as a visual artist has been contaminated by ideas and approaches
that others may consider as within the realm of fiction. Whilst I recognise
AUGUST WINDS as a fiction I also recognise the numerous moments
that the film draws on my documentary experience, on real people and
encounters. At the core of AUGUST WINDS are ideas about the wind that
transit time and space in a way that contaminates the very nature of the
film. I like to think of the wind blowing us in directions and towards ideas
and considerations that we don’t expect it to.
CAST SHIRLEY Dandara de Morais JEISON Geová Manoel dos Santos
GRANDMOTHER Maria Salvino dos Santos JEISON’S FATHER Antônio
José dos Santos WIND RESEARCHER Gabriel Mascaro
CREW DIRECTOR Gabriel Mascaro PRODUCER Rachel Ellis SCREENPLAY
Gabriel Mascaro & Rachel Ellis CINEMATOGRAPHY Gabriel Mascaro
EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Rachel Ellis & Stefania Régis EDITING Ricardo
Pretti & Eduardo Serrano PRODUCTION MANAGER Livia de Melo ART
DIRECTION Stefania Régis DIRECT SOUND Victoria Franzan SOUND
DESIGN, EDIT & MIX Mauricio d’Orey POST-PRODUCTION PRODUCER
Vanessa Barbosa SPECIAL EFFECTS Ernesto Herrmann & Cinecolor
GRAPHIC DESIGN Guilherme Luigi