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Last week’s film ‘Des Fonds’ reminded me the ‘Symphonie Diagonale’ by Viking Eggeling (1880-1925). The short film is his last oeuvre – a conclusion of his artistic life influenced by dadaism and the novembergruppe. He has been searching for the motion painting.

Nowadays short film is getting way more attraction due to youtube and vimeo and all these technical devices. A look back to our short film history could help us to get even further today.

Here are two free online film libraries:
Europa Film Treasures offers a wide range of European short films digitally reworked. Have a look at the Symphonie Diagonale there.
film archives online provides an online catalogue.

The publication architexto is a series of books and exhibitions including a workshop where an architect and another profession (like a writer, a director, etc.) have to produce a book together.

It has caught my attention by their last publication on Damien Henry, architects, and Bouli Lanners, a director.

Bouli Lanners was the one who gave us ‘ultranova’. It is a hilarious film about a seller of turn-key houses. Lanners has started off as a Comedian at the Snuls, a Belgian comedy, so you can imagine, how this man is stage-managing the suburban no man’s land. This is not just a film for architects and urban planners but also for people who like the cities to become denser in a more cultural way.

Visit the next exhibition of architexto in Liège, Belgium, from 06nov 08 until the 06dec 08:
Maison Renaissance de L’Emulation
This exhibition is featuring Baumans-Deffet as architects and Géraldine Brausch as a philosophe.
You can meet them in person the 22nov 08 at the exhibition.

The books can be bought online and are in English and French. The series is featuring the following creative duos:
06 Damien Henry, architect + Bouli Lanners, director
05 Martiat-Durnez, architects + Frédéric Saenen, writer
04 Daniel Delgoffe, architects + Mycose, comix factory
03 AIUD, architects + Carmelo Virone, writer
02 Nélis-Delincé, architects + Pascal Leclercq, writer
01 FHW, architects + Nicolas Ancion, writer

A short and superficial overview on the HISTORY OF FILM in Brazil. As you know I made a critical remark to the Golden Bear for Tropa de Elite. I just would like to suggest some other favela-films which are worth to be watched.

Next monday you get a cast on TV Roc, the broadcasting from Rocinha.

Auf könnt Ihr das Thema Film hier nachlesen.

Topics of the Brazilian film history and films I am refering to:
I tried to find the youtube links – only the newer ones are in English. When I linked the English title than it should be in English.
Cinema Novo
= italian Neo-realism (for example: Roma Città Aperta from Bertolucci)

• ‘Rio 40 Graus‘ /Rio at 40 degrees, 1955/ and ‘Rio Zona Norte’ /Rio Northern Zone, 1957/ from Nelson Pereira dos Santos,
  You may watch the whole film in Portuguese. This here is just the first sequence. The rest you can find on youtube.
• Cinco vezes Favela /five times favela 1962/, a collective film

Gláuber Rocha calls it in 1965 the “aesthetic of famine”.

Cinema Marginal

• ‘Terra em Transe‘ /Gláuber Rocha, Land in Trance 1967/,
  DVD out just in portuguese.
• ‘Macunaíma‘ /1969 by Joaquim Pedro/,
  in Portuguese and French
  The scene with the swimming pool is from the Parque Lage.
• ‘O homem que Virou Suco‘ /The squeezed Man, 1979 by Jaoa Batista de Andrade/

Paulista
(more for TV than for cinema)

• ‘Olhar Electrônico’ /electronic view/ with ‘Garotos do Subúrbio’ /The boys from the suburbs, 1982/
• ‘Solo, the Law of Favela’ (1994),
• ‘Zezé’ – The boy, the pod-lid and the favela’ (1995),
• ‘Geraldo voador’ /Flying Gerald/(1996).

Favela-Pop

• Noticias de Uma guerra Particular /News from a private war, 1998
• Cidade de Deus /City of God 2002 by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund/
• Cidade dos homens /City of Men/ = Telenovela
• Uma Ondo no Ar /FavelaRadio 2003/,
• Favela Rising 2005