The Brazilian filmmaker, music producer, actor, and theater director Júlio Calasso passed away on Friday, June 11 at the age of 80. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Calasso, a peripheral member of the Cinema Marginal movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, directed the feature length film Longo Caminho da Morte in 1972 starring Othon Bastos and Dionísio Azevedo, in addition to the documentary Plínio Marcos nas Quebradas do Mundaréu in 2015, featuring Neville d’Almeida and Tônia Carrero.
Calasso was born in São Paulo in 1941 and made his film debut as an actor and production assistant in Rogério Sganzerla’s fundamental marginal cinema classic, O Bandido da Luz Vermelha (1968). Calasso also participated in other alternative Brazilian features such as O Vampiro da Cinemateca (1977) by Jairo Ferreira and Filme Demência (1986) by Carlos Reinchenbach. His last film credit was from 2017, when he appeared in the mainstream Brazilian comedy Fala Serério, Mãe!, starring Ingrid Guimarães, Larissa Manoela, and the late pop-culture comedian Paulo Gustavo.
As a music producer, Calasso produced records for such musicians and groups as Moraes Moreira, Itamar Assumpção, Joelho de Porco, and Novos Baianos, among others.
On Facebook, Calasso’s son wrote that his father “left a legacy on how to live life” and “fought until the end.”
