Official Selection 2022: Retrospective and Classics

RETROSPECTIVE – SU FRIEDRICH AND OTHER IMAGES FOR THE INVISIBLE

After a two-year absence from the Olhar de Cinema programming, the Retrospective section returns to the festival featuring, for the first time, the work of a female director: the American filmmaker Su Friedrich, a leading name in inventive cinema and an indispensable reference for lesbian voices in the production of images. The program comprises 7 films by Friedrich, from different periods of her career, in dialogue with 8 other productions by prominent women and/or queer filmmakers from different countries and periods. The screening sessions, which make up the largest exhibition ever held for the filmmaker’s work in Brazil, will be further expanded and complemented with a debate panel at the Curitiba Film Seminar and a recorded interview with the director available on the festival’s website.

Born in 1954, Friedrich began her career in New York in the late 1970s, and has since navigated between different media, formats, and languages. She has directed 25 films, working as director, photographer, and editor on most of them. As we dive to sink and swim into her work, we find a gaze that renders visible what had previously remained intangible as an underlying desire that inspires and traverses her entire filmography. Resonating and pursuing this same gesture, we place her cinema at the center of a constellation of images encompassed by widely renowned filmmakers as well as underexplored filmographies in Brazil. Thus, alongside Friedrich’s work, the audience in this year’s Retrospective will have the opportunity to attend screening sessions featuring films by Germaine Dulac, Maya Deren, Chantal Akerman, Barbara Hammer, Leontine Sagan, Cheryl Dunye, Thirza Cuthand and Zeinabu Irene Davis.

Su Friedrich’s films confirmed in the programming are:

GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM
/ GENTLY DOWN THE STREAM
Su Friedrich | USA, 1981, 13’

THE TIES THAT BIND
/ THE TIES THAT BIND
Su Friedrich | USA, 1984, 55’

DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
/ DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
Su Friedrich | USA, 1987, 42’

SINK OR SWIM
/ SINK OR SWIM
Su Friedrich | USA, 1990, 48’

HIDE AND SEEK
/ HIDE AND SEEK
Su Friedrich | USA, 1996, 63’

THE ODDS OF RECOVERY
/ THE ODDS OF RECOVERY
Su Friedrich | USA, 2002, 65’

I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW I FEEL
/ I CANNOT TELL YOU HOW I FEEL
Su Friedrich | USA, 2016, 42’

All of Friedrich’s films were provided by the filmmaker herself.

The following films by other authors are also part of the exhibition:

THE SEASCHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN
/ LA COQUILLE ET LE CLERGYMAN
Germaine Dulac | France, 1928, 40’

AT LAND
/ AT LAND
Maya Deren | USA, 1944, 15’

NITRATE KISSES
/ NITRATE KISSES
Barbara Hammer | USA, 1992, 67’

CYCLES
/ CYCLES
Zeinabu Irene Davis | USA, 1989, 17’

LESSONS IN BABY DYKE THEORY
/ LESSONS IN BABY DYKE THEORY
Thirza Cuthand | Canada, 1995, 3’

NEWS FROM HOME
/ NEWS FROM HOME
Chantal Akerman | France, Belgium, 1977, 85’

GIRLS IN UNIFORM
/ MÄDCHEN IN UNIFORM
Leontine Sagan | Germany, 1931, 88’

THE WATERMELON WOMAN
/ THE WATERMELON WOMAN
Cheryl Dunye | USA, 1996, 90’

CLASSICS

The Classics section, a crucial connection between Olhar de Cinema’s contemporary programming and the history of the seventh art, returns yet again after a two-year hiatus due to the online editions during the pandemic. The concept of ​​the section, after all, has always been to screen imperative and classic films in the dark theater for collective appreciation, in restored copies or at least in excellent conditions. The six titles that make up this year’s section tread the same direction that the audience has come to expect from Olhar’s Classic Section: the celebration of a capital film in the history of cinema on a significant date (the centenary of Nanook of the North), the discovery of lesser-known films in Brazil made by filmmakers rarely screened in the country (Sara Gómez, from Cuba; Ousmane Sembène, from Senegal); and a tribute to great names in cinema to whom we recently bid farewell (Peter Bogdanovich, Arnaldo Jabor, Geraldo Sarno). In sum, a powerful plunge into global cinema from varied historical moments and diverse aesthetic and narrative proposals.

Check out below the full list of films:

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER
/ DE CIERTA MANERA
Sara Gómez | Cuba, 1977, 78’

PAPER MOON
/ PAPER MOON
Peter Bogdanovich | USA, 1973, 105’

MANDABI
/ MANDABI
Ousmane Sembene  | Senegal, France, 1968, 92’

NANOOK OF THE NORTH
/ NANOOK OF THE NORTH
Robert Flaherty | USA, 1922, 78’

PUBLIC OPINION
/ OPINIÃO PÚBLICA
Arnaldo Jabor | Brazil, 1967, 65’

VIRAMUNDO
/ VIRAMUNDO
Geraldo Sarno | Brazil, 1965, 37’