*How did you get into making films?
In Brazil, perhaps in the world, there are two ways to make a film: with money and without money. With money there are many advantages. Without money, there is one: freedom. So, I started with “freedom”, which is a romantic name for low budget. I discovered, at the Cinema college, other people who weren´t interested or concerned about making films for "a large audience", films that would have the obligation to generate a financial return. So, I started (we started) to develop projects that depended more on ourselves and of our ideas than on cutting-edge equipment, expensive scenarios, special effects...
*What inspired you to make your movie?
“The Brazilian Fried Movie”, which in Brazil is called “Filme Sujo” (“Dirty Movie” would be a literal translation), is inspired by Cinema Marginal (movement that had its peak between the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s), but also in the movement that precedes it, Cinema Novo (peak in the 60s), and in the aesthetics of innovative short films, such as “Ilha das Flores” (literal translation - “Flower Island” -, 1989), by Jorge Furtado, in which fiction and documentaries harmonize ironically. However, in addition to Brazilian cinema, there are varied sources of inspiration, one of them was the one that originated the title in English – “The Kentucky Fried Movie” (1977), by John Landis.
*How has your style evolved?
In Cinema College, a teacher, in a playful tone, referred to a short film I made with fellow students as an indication of a “new marginal cinema”. I liked the epithet and assumed it. I don´t know if this constitutes a style properly, but the fact is that the difficulties inherent in precarious production combine with a predilection for themes, characters and aesthetic treatments that proliferate outside the interests of the film industry. I am interested in all film styles and it is possible to make good and bad films anywhere in the world and with any budget.
*Tell us any strange or funny stories while making the film?
There is an incorruptible and unintended honesty that is printed on a film when the chance is a key piece. For example, actors get drunk when what they drink on stage is not a scenographic drink. The same goes for the film crew. Let's say that filming the march of the marijuana and recording the performance of a carnival block helped to mix a documentary style to a fictional narrative. A reveler who comes to the camera to say unexpected things, the rain that forces him to change a film set, an actor who did not attend to the recording because he didn´t wake up in time and ends up being replaced by the film director (myself)... These are samples of the hand of chance giving a final treatment to a flexible script.
*The Misrule Film Movement & Pink8 manifesto bring what to mind?
The limited budget and unlimited creativity can make a seductive, broad and open relationship, in which partners add up themselves. Fostering and promoting underground cinema is a way of “making art with your own hands”, it is committing the “crime without guilt” of throwing lights on paths where tolls should not be charged. There are no shortcuts and the route is turbulent, but the possibility of sketching other horizons pays off and it is worth showing your dirty hands ... with fresh paint. Independent cinema, truly independent, is, above all, truthful.
*What can we expect from your next film?
There is no next film in sight, but several ideas and draft arguments. There are conversations in bars and cafes, actors and non-actors being polled. A team in formation, perhaps. However, nothing should be expected. Everything that can be done is a possibility, including nothing. But, to be less vague, I admit an idea involving addiction to sweetened substances, peaceful coexistence under a certain state of hallucination and conspiracy theories improvised by people of good faith... A documentary? It is likely to include a band performing the original soundtrack live, while recording.
