After the sold-out screening of Casa Grande, a masterful debut feature by Fellipe Barbosa,the Brazilian director and co-scriptwriter was available for questions from the audience in CD’s Kosovel Hall. To Jedrt Jež Furlan’s question how his socially critical drama was received by the domestic audiences Barbosa replied that the Brazilians were enthralled. He also mentioned an unusual anecdote about Brazilian festivals – at as many as five festivals the film won second place; it was always the runner-up and a different film received the first prize each time.

The film’s cast was composed of prominent celebrities from Brazilian soap operas, whom Barbosa gave the opportunity to try their hand at another kind of artistic expression. That Marcello Novaes, who excellently portrayed the character of the rich father whose life as he knows it is falling apart, wears surfing outfits (he resembles Burt Reynolds in Boogie Nights, suggested Barbosa) ultimately adds to the complexity of the film. The teenage actors definitely had least problems with acting, he stressed, as they have been “playing the same role for the past eleven years.”

The fresh approach to the issues of class and racial exclusion, tackled by Brazilians directors in various periods, also stems from Barbosa’s existential dilemmas – the story is partly autobiographical, “the father resembles my father and the mother my mother” – the film is rather personal.” The director has personally experienced the motif of love between the wealthy young man and the maid. He explained that within the context of taboos and alienation it was the house maids that initiate young men into discussions on subjects that the parents find controversial or indecent, including sexual ones. When he was studying abroad his parents went bankrupt and the director felt guilty for not having been there for them.

Barbosa revealed that he was working on two new projects, the socially critical Domingo about a Sunday picnic in 2003 when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became the President of Brazil, and Gabriel e A Montanha, a heartrending film about his mountaineering friend who met his death in the mountains.

In Brazil “Casa Grande” is a metaphor for upper classes, termed after Casa-Grande e Senzala (Masters and Slaves) a famed study by Gilbert Freyrey from 1933 on the formation of Brazilian society. Barbosa wishes that the rich and privileged classes would acknowledge their social standing. He mentioned the excellent directors who addressed this topic with greater severity, which is why the rich people, alienated from their servants and their problems, could not identify with the story. By contrast, Barbosa tackles the theme “exclusively with love.”

Andraž Jež

Foto: Iztok Dimc
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