Brazilian Women's Filmmaking

From Dictatorship to Democracy

Leslie Marsh

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780252094378
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

At most recent count, there are no fewer than forty-five women in Brazil directing or codirecting feature-length fiction or documentary films. In the early 1990s, women filmmakers in Brazil were credited for being at the forefront of the rebirth of filmmaking, or retomada, after the abolition of the state film agency and subsequent standstill of film production. Despite their numbers and success, films by Brazilian women directors are generally absent from discussions of Latin American film and published scholarly works.

Filling this void, Brazilian Women's Filmmaking focuses on women's film production in Brazil from the mid-1970s to the current era. Leslie L. Marsh explains how women's filmmaking contributed to the reformulation of sexual, cultural, and political citizenship during Brazil's fight for the return and expansion of civil rights during the 1970s and 1980s and the recent questioning of the quality of democracy in the 1990s and 2000s. She interprets key films by Ana Carolina and Tizuka Yamasaki, documentaries with social themes, and independent videos supported by archival research and extensive interviews with Brazilian women filmmakers. Despite changes in production contexts, recent Brazilian women's films have furthered feminist debates regarding citizenship while raising concerns about the quality of the emergent democracy. Brazilian Women's Filmmaking offers a unique view of how women's audiovisual production has intersected with the reconfigurations of gender and female sexuality put forth by the women's movements in Brazil and continuing demands for greater social, cultural, and political inclusion.

1

Brazilian Women’s Filmmaking and the State during the 1970s and 1980s

Despite a long history in filmmaking and increasing visibility, women’s contribution to Brazilian cinema has only recently begun to gain greater attention from scholars of Latin American film. In the preface to the article they include in their volume on women’s filmmaking in Brazil, Randal Johnson and Robert Stam refer to the presence of women filmmakers in world cinema as a strong but subterranean current.¹ Thus, this chapter aims to fill a void in Brazilian film historiography and bring women’s activity in Brazilian film to the surface. By drawing on both published materials as well as oral interviews, I aim to place an important group of women filmmakers on the cultural map of contemporary Brazilian cinema.

A considerable amount of historiographical work on Brazilian cinema has been undertaken, but it has overlooked or only tangentially included women’s participation. Although textual documentation may often form the basis for historiographical work, textual evidence should not be considered the only source for understanding what has unfolded in the past. Paul Thompson provides a foundational account of how oral testimony holds a central role in the charting of history. He asserts that, as a methodology, oral histories offer several advantages for historical research in that they allow for understanding the experience of others outside central power structures. They illuminate “official” history by providing key insights into social, political, and economic processes where the course of events as they are understood and experienced by a range of individuals are juxtaposed with documented dates, names, and places. Calling on participants’ experiences then allows the cultural historian to explore alternative angles of established history and consider the viewpoints of “minor” figures. Oral histories allow researchers to cross the public-private divide to consider those participants in political processes that have not held an elected office or other public position. In addition, oral histories offer an advantage in that they serve as a key mode of research for investigating firsthand the lives of women and how they have “unofficially” participated in political processes.²

Taking into account the key processes taking place in Brazilian cinema during military dictatorship and the transition to democracy, I first investigate the role of the state in women’s filmmaking. How and to what degree were new women filmmakers able to negotiate with the state and the state-led film agency Embrafilme during the 1970s and 1980s? What access points were available to them and to what degree were they able to take advantage of them? Second, I take into consideration the changing social and political landscape. How did these women filmmakers position themselves in the context of a society undergoing significant political and social change? Once the government took on a more supportive role in the film industry, contemporary women filmmakers began participating in filmmaking; however, women filmmakers in Brazil have conflicting opinions about the state-led agency and its role in supporting their careers as directors.

Before Embrafilme

Prior to the military coup d’état of 1964, the Brazilian film industry received little assistance from government agencies. Ongoing discussions at this time regarding the role of the state in the film industry led to the creation of GEICINE³ in 1961 at the beginning of the administration of Jânio Quadros. Generally speaking, GEICINE successfully articulated the concerns of the film industry to ministries and government agencies, but its programs largely benefited large production companies and foreign distributors.⁴ Independent filmmakers were at a great economic disadvantage, as there were few funding options available to filmmakers who were starting out in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Concurrently, Cinema Novo filmmakers, taking inspiration from the production practices of postwar Italian neorealist directors and the French notion of the auteur, introduced their own understanding of filmmaking in an economically disadvantaged context, became a reference point for contemporary Brazilian cinema, and greatly influenced Latin American Cinema generally.

Some financial relief came to independent directors in 1963 when Guanabara governor Carlos Lacerda decreed the formation of the Comissão de Auxílio à Indústria Cinematográfica (CAIC, Commission for Aid to the Film Industry). This agency, charged with administering two programs of financial assistance to the film industry, is notable for becoming a major source of funding for filmmakers in and near Rio de Janeiro, including Cinema Novo directors, and was the first state agency to provide money to a woman filmmaker. Helena Solberg received funds from the CAIC to produce her groundbreaking short film A Entrevista (The Interview) in 1966, a film in which Solberg offers a critique of female social values of her own upper-class Rio de Janeiro.⁵ The CAIC brings about another important “first” involving the state and the film industry in Brazil in that it exerted ideological control over the film projects that would receive its financial assistance. Monies were denied to any film that attacked the democratic system through the use of violence, racial or class prejudice, or propaganda. These early signs of economic and political censorship proved to be a multifaceted problem during the 1970s and into the early 1980s during the authoritarian military regime.

Despite its neoliberal economic stance, the military regime began investing in and taking control of the cultural sector soon after assuming power. In 1966, The Instituto Nacional de Cinema (INC, the National Film Institute) came into being by decree. During its existence from 1966 to 1975, the INC was responsible for increasing film production in Brazil by 157 percent.⁶ The institute passed a number of resolutions that provided funds for the importation of expensive filmmaking equipment, provided cash awards and subsidies for film production, and established an increase in compulsory exhibition of national films.

In retrospect, the INC effected some positive changes in the national film industry. However, the nature of those successes needs to be evaluated more closely. Starting in 1967, the INC sponsored three key programs to provide production assistance to Brazilian filmmakers: an awards program based on quality, a subsidy program based on box-office receipts, and a co-production program drawing from income taxes of foreign distributors. While these programs became important sources of funding for Brazilian filmmakers, especially the members of the Cinema Novo group,⁷ the INC policies did not benefit newcomers. Notwithstanding that few women were in a position at this time to take advantage of the funding made available, the INC measures largely assisted already-established filmmakers and production companies, which would prove to be a trend in later years. From 1965 to 1969, no women working in 16 mm or 35 mm film received funds from the INC. From 1970 to 1974, the INC funded no feature-length film projects by women directors but did fund seven out of a total of seventy-one short film projects, representing approximately 9.85 percent of women’s short film production during this period.⁸ While the INC was in existence, most women continued to draw from their own finances or from private investors to help fund their short or feature-length film projects.

Women who began their careers in film in the mid- to late 1960s were entering a profession that had not been truly open to them previously. In Brazil at the time, filmmaking was a mode of expression open to few individuals. This, in part, explains why women took different paths to learn the craft of filmmaking. A few decided to go abroad to study filmmaking. Suzana Amaral and Helena Solberg both went to the United States in the late 1970s.⁹ Sandra Werneck completed a one-year practical course in Holland, and Eunice Gutman studied in Brussels, Belgium, where she completed a degree at the National Institute of Art, Spectacle, and Techniques of Diffusion (INSAS). Others took less conventional routes. Tereza Trautman explains that she became interested in cinema in her teenage years but when she wanted to learn how to make films, she was aware of only one private school in São Paulo, which was not an economic option for her. Instead, she learned by reading books on her own, borrowing materials, and working with friends who contributed supplies or their labor.¹⁰

This sort of cooperative work Trautman describes is common to many of these women filmmakers and has been central to the development of their careers. Tata Amaral explains that she learned to make films by collaborating with an informal group of people in São Paulo and by assisting her husband at the time, who was involved in filmmaking.¹¹ Amaral’s experience also resembles that of Lúcia Murat, who was dating a man involved in cinema and journalism. Murat, an experienced journalist, notes that her involvement in cinema came about organically since the two fields were closely linked in the 1960s and 1970s.¹² Sandra Werneck reflects on her own experience selling a family cow to get supplies to make her first film and working in a context where, lacking a commercial structure, “tudo era co-operativado” (everything was cooperative).¹³ Julia Lesage has discussed different modes of media production by women, noting that a collective approach such as the one described by Sandra Werneck, allows for (in addition to sharing economic resources) skill sharing and nonhierarchical, collective scripting, editing, and filming.¹⁴ Werneck notes that her daughter, who is trying to break into the field in the Retomada period, has to come up with a lot more money to complete her first film. Werneck asserts that the collaborative environment she experienced no longer exists.¹⁵

Some followed the path that women directors such as Carmen Santos, Gilda de Abreu, and Cleo de Verberena took in the early years of cinema. Ana Maria Magalhães worked behind the scenes on films in which she also acted. Under the direction of Glauber Rocha and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Magalhães learned to edit film, the discourse of film, and the professional rigors of being a director. She notes, however, that her proximity to production as an actress did not translate into an easier entrance into the field. Actresses who showed interest in the technical realms of the profession were not always taken seriously.¹⁶ Ana Carolina and Tizuka Yamasaki combined their formal study of cinema with practical experience. While Ana Carolina studied at the Escola de São Luiz in São Paulo, Tizuka Yamasaki began her studies at the Universidade de Brasília before transferring to Rio de Janeiro upon the closure of her program in the capital. In addition to their formal training, both worked on film sets with established Cinema Novo directors such as Walter Hugo Khouri, Glauber Rocha, and Nelson Pereira dos Santos.¹⁷

The contact Ana Carolina and Tizuka Yamasaki had with these respected male filmmakers provided them with invaluable experience and gave them additional credibility years later when they needed to apply for production funding with Embrafilme and private investors in order to direct their first feature-length films. Revealing the importance of her experience working with Cinema Novo directors, Yamasaki declares that during her years of learning the trade, the most important thing for her “era ter conseguido ficar perto do Nelson (Pereira dos Santos) que era uma ponte para o mercado de trabalho” (was to have managed to stay close to Nelson [Pereira dos Santos], who was a bridge to the labor market).¹⁸ The influence of Cinema Novo filmmakers was as much a benefit as it was a detriment to aspiring women directors. In short, they appreciated the training they received and the insights into filmmaking they learned when working with these filmmakers, but they certainly do not feel they owe their success to Cinema Novo predecessors.

In 1969, the Empresa Brasileiro de Filmes (Embrafilme) came into being during the most repressive years of the military regime. Originally created to promote and distribute Brazilian films abroad, Embrafilme was charged to oversee commercial and noncommercial film activities such as film festivals, the publication of film journals, and training of technicians. As an autarquia, Embrafilme was an independent enterprise that operated with funds from the state. Although the organization was self-governing, the state could still exert a great deal of influence.

Embrafilme held relatively few powers during the first years of its existence, but by 1974 it had grown into a national distributor and a significant source of film-production financing. The agency began a low-interest (10 percent) loan program in 1970, which made funds available to production companies based on a ranking system. Each company was placed into three categories according to its production history. The vast majority of available funds went to well-established firms, and a small percentage went to less experienced or beginning producers. Beyond production history, Embrafilme did not presumably make qualitative or ideological judgments about proposed film projects, which explains why some producers of pornochanchadas, a genre of film produced in the 1970s that combined soft-core porn and comedy, were able to take advantage of some state financial assistance.¹⁹

With little to no production history, Embrafilme’s loan program did not benefit many women filmmakers. From 1970 to 1974, only one woman, Lenita Perroy, received production assistance from Embrafilme to produce her second feature-length 35 mm film, A Noiva da Noite (The Night Bride, 1974). In contrast, women received most of their support from funds they were able to come up with on their own and, to a limited degree, from private investors, programs still in effect in the INC, and regional and local sources of support of filmmaking. From 1965 to 1974, no regional or state entity funded a woman’s 16 mm or 35 mm feature-length film.²⁰ During the same period, regional or state entities assisted with the production of nine (or 12.7 percent) short films made from 16 mm or 35 mm film stock.²¹ Ana Carolina, as a case in point, was able to direct a 35 mm short film Indústria (1969) after winning a prize from the Secretary of Culture in the State of São Paulo.²² Other novice women directors received financial support to make films while they were enrolled in university programs that were opening up in the late 1960s and early 1970s.²³ These awards and university programs were an important source of local and regional funding for women’s filmmaking.

As discussed further on, women’s participation in filmmaking in Brazil took firm root in the 1980s on the heels of a period of significant expansion of Brazilian cinema in its own market²⁴ and at the intersection of second-wave women’s movement and a slow return to democracy. By the early 1980s, Embrafilme had become a vital source for independent, auteur cinema in Brazil and helped secure (but not sustain) women’s place in the Brazilian film industry.

(Re)entering the Frame

The 1970s can be defined as the years when women were beginning to appear in the contemporary film industry as directors, and they were entering a context that was not entirely prepared for them or what they had to express. Tereza Trautman describes her experiences in the early 1970s that are illustrative of the context many women directors faced. Lacking mechanisms of support for film production, Trautman took on several roles in film production, relied on loaned equipment, bought expired film stock, and solicited the help of many friends to complete her first film Fantástico in 1970.²⁵ She signed a contract with a small distributor, which has long since gone out of business. Once in the hands of the exhibitors, the film was given the subtitle Os Deuses do Sexo (The Gods of Sex), but the film, she states, had nothing to do with sex at all.²⁶ The title of Trautman’s film had been altered to attract spectators. A government censor stopped the film and demanded scenes be cut, which she did befo...