INTERVIEW_JOEL ZITO

The author of the award-winning documentary film “A negação do Brasil” (The denial of Brazil), which deals with prejudice, taboos, and the path of Afro-descendant characters in Brazilian soap operas, film maker Joel Zito Araújo is now releasing his first fiction feature film, “Filhas do vento” (Daughters of the wind). The movie gathers up the largest Afro-descendant cast ever in Brazilian cinema, and depicts an universal and dramatic situation, based on the conflicts between different generations of a family.

By Helio Hara

Were you surprised that your film won so many awards? (best film by popular jury at Tiradentes Festival and eight Kikitos at Gramado Festival)
I knew the film had its qualities and that one or more of the actors would be awarded, but I didn’t expect so many. The awards testify to the quality of the feature film and puts an end to the idea that it is a film exclusively for Black audiences. I was sure the country would be moved by a story which portrays universal conflicts, a lyrical story, humane, among mothers, sisters and daughters. Those who go to the movies wish to be affected with emotion. Another surprising element is the fact that the Black actors escaped the stereotypes usually reserved for them in the Brazilian cinema and TV. In “Filhas de vento” they are just normal Brazilians.

Does the film contain autobiographic elements?
I was born in the municipality of Nanuque, in a small village similar to that portrayed in the movie (Lavras Novas, district of Ouro Preto, which in the 18th century was founded as a “quilombo” – a runaway slave hideout). Actors Milton Gonçalves and Ruth de Souza are also from Minas Gerais. When I made my previous feature film, the documentary “A negação do Brasil” (on the trajectory of the actors and the prejudice against Black characters in TV soap operas), I heard many interesting stories. “Filhas do vento” brings together a few of these stories. My female characters all come from the stories I heard from the actresses and women in my family.

It is a film with strong women and few men...
It is a movie about women, but the situation of the Brazilian Black male is well portrayed. The character played by Milton Gonçalves (who makes a living fixing bicycles) is a typical Black father concerned about his acceptance by society, he wants to be perfect, has rigid morals to show that he doesn’t correspond to the stereotyped idea about Blacks. Zózimo Bulbul (who plays a man in love, without a steady job) is an ordinary type that remains since the end of slavery: the Black man excluded from the job market, who has problems with alcohol and a unenthusiastic outlook on life.

In the film, the word “fate” appears frequently. Is it the idea to question the inevitable?
I wanted to show the attitude which still exists in a part of the Black population, that portion most victimized by our history whose self-esteem is very low. These people tend to justify their human condition as a fatality, and not as the result of social-economical relations. The character Cida (who migrates to the big city and fulfills her dream of becoming an actress) breaks through this line of thought and makes her dream come true.

The lover who unbalances one of the characters is a white man with light-colored eyes...
He is almost like a character in a documentary, super-realistic, the married lover, of either white or Black women. In real life, he could be any color. In the movie, he had to be White, as there is a physiological sense of punishment: the daughter wants to punish her mother, who personifies a middle-class Black woman, who dedicates all her energy to her professional life, forgetting her daughter, and is, at the same, time a militant, understanding and discussing racial issues.

Does it make a lot of difference if stories about Blacks are told by Blacks or Whites?
Black film making is going through a very particular moment of transition. Our phychologicall and cultural universe is different, and cannot be understood by White folks. By Black film making, I don’t mean films with a majority of Blacks (in the cast, or in the production), but cinema in which the authorship contains a black diasporic posture. In “Assalto ao trem pagador” (Roberto Farias, 1962), we get an outsider’s view (of a White director telling the story of a Black character, Tião Medonho). On the other hand, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, the director of “Rio 40 graus”, who is a low middle-class man and son of tailors, got to know Blacks from his very early childhood and is therefore able to understand and incorporate them into his films in a different way thanks to the environment of the neighborhoods, Brás and Bexiga in São Paulo, where he was raised.

In the United States, art produced by Afro-Americans is studied in a different category. In Brazil, is it relevant to think of “black cultural producers”?
Brazil is headed towards a multi-racial future. The 1930-40’s in Brazil were characterized by ideas of a mixture of all races. This is something that differentiates Brazil. This idea started to be questioned. I am not against miscegenation, I am a product of it and I’m not suicidal! But the difference is that today, the idea of hybridization is that of, instead of erasing the past, emphasizing the origins of each element, value the past together with the present. “Filhas do vento” was influenced by Spike Lee and other Black American film makers and also by Almodóvar, Fellini and Bergman. It is hybridization without erasing racial/ethnic characteristics. In Brazil, black discourse regards integrationby way of a democratic living based on the idea of multi-racialism, not an apartheid discourse, like in many sectors and races in the United States.

Is it important that Government stimulates black cinema?
I think so, as in Brazil, society is ambiguous, liberal on one hand and conservative on the other. No rightwing politician likes to be called rightwing, nobody admits to be racist. We need to go through a phase in which Government facilitates access of blacks, natives and other minotity ethnic groups to the right of having public resources for artistic productions, like the right to seats in universities. It would be something transitory, I don’t know for how long.

Is the organization of Black film makers something important in Brazil, a country where TV and commercial productions are marked by White people, with blond hair and light-colored eyes?
This is a completely Nordic standard. You see in magazines the list of the 50 best-looking soap opera actors, and at the top are the light-colored. The more Nordic, the better-looking! We have to understand that beauty or ugliness are not attributes of any specific race. We have to break with this racist aesthetic idea that whites are superior to Blacks. As to the Black film makers’, yes, I do think that it is important. We have to be together to demarcate and protect a territory. Like the gay and women film makers, who have to create associations to protect their interests and be able to execute their ideas, creations.

Did the popularization of new technologies make film making more democratic, providing access to further Black directors?
There was no direct effect. New technologies allow new film makers to experiment until they are able to make their first feature film. Today, there are 18 new Black film makers in Brazil who have already made their short films and will possibly emerge as major names. In the so called “retrieval of the Brazilian cinema” (starting in the mid 90’s, when production and box office revenues grew for local movies), we saw 200 new names of directors who had made at least one feature film. I am the only one claiming to be Afro-Brazilian among them all. This is typical of the problems we are facing.

You are then, an optimist?
Yes, exaggeratedly so, to a fault! I think that everything is going to get a lot better. If you think about Brazilian society starting in the 70’s, you will see that, despite the snail’s pace, there has been improvement and, today, the panorama is different. At that time, notable athletes hid their black roots, intellectuals, artists, Brazilian leftwing members, believed and loved the myth that we lived in a racial democracy. Today, there are Black politicians, ministers, activists in NGOs, hip hop musicians, extremely active, working to create different country. And there is a new generation of white people with different views as well. The ideas of racial relations we defend, they are now a historical demand, from the last century, which have become more powerful over the last twenty years. My films are a part of this movement, they are a result of this social base.