By Leonard Cortana*
Your film Seven Years in May follows a similar genre as your previous film Araby—a picaresque tale, a dialogical road movie with several moments that re-enact traumatic memories in order to highlight political oppression in Brazil. What do you like exploring in this genre in particular?
Both films have something in common, but this is not obvious at first glance. The first is the methodology - João and I both build the narrative during production. This is a very precarious process with a lot of experimentation in order to build the script, full of ups and downs but it often leads to just the right shot. During this process we are drawn to images that speak to a previous life through the experience of filmmaking. I think this gives my visuals more texture, resulting in movies that can be clearly split up into different episodes. We bring the film together during the editing process and at that point we write the script. My films are about the power of words. As a former writer, l am deeply influenced by Brazilian literature and this can be clearly seen in my films
Your film refers to a long cinematic history of depicting working class struggle in Latin America. However, instead of focusing on collective action you examine the loneliness sometimes associated with processes of self-realization. Can you tell us about this narrative choice?
We live in a time where collective structures are breaking down. Contemporary capitalism worships the individual and diminishes the role of society. This is leading to the erosion of class consciousness. I do not think my characters are proud of being alone, but despite this, they create a reality based only on their individual future. My films critique this by portraying the loneliness associated with being in a society made up of individuals. However, I think we cannot live alone and that is why the characters in my films are looking for people to share their lives with. Through doing so we show how much better life is with someone to share it with, someone by your side.
This film was shot before the 2018 Presidential Election. How does it feel to screen it in 2019 as part of the Veredas Retrospective?
In some ways Bolsonaro's government is shining a light on the dark underbelly of Brazilian society. Brazil is one of the most unequal societies in the world, our elites reproduce the legacy of racist slavery. One of the vestiges of our past is that we use state violence to prevent people from rioting. In order to make predictions about Bolsonaro's term, we intensify public fear by connecting today’s realities to the Brazil of centuries past. The fear of losing indigenous traditions, “the traces of their civilization.” The fear of civil war between rich and poor, Black and white, Christian and non-Christian. As well as the fear that we have of more dark times ahead.
Is there a film or filmmaker in the Veredas Retrospective that particularly inspires you?
I’m a real fan of Julio Bressane, one of Brazil’s greatest modern filmmakers. He mixes European and Western influences with Brazilian popular culture. For example, he puts Nietzsche alongside Pixinguinha and mixes Dutch paintings with Samba Canção and makes Greek philosophy emanate from the landscape of Rio de Janeiro.
Besides Bressane’s work, l find myself in conversation with Adirley Queirós and André Novais Oliveira’s works. We all came from the peripheries and we started making films in a country where filmmaking is a domain of the rich. However, this has changed - during the Lula era you started to see working class people making films. Our films became a symbol that Brazil was becoming a more democratic and equal society.
Seven Years in May will have its U.S. premiere on Sunday, December 8 as part of Cinema Tropical’s Veredas: A Generation of Brazilian Filmmakers at Film at Lincoln Center.
* Leonard Cortana is a PhD Candidate in Cinema Studies at NYU Tisch School of the Arts and a 2019 / 2020 Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University.
