Berlinale 2019: Wagner Moura: "Brazil lives a genocide of the black population" | Culture

Berlinale 2019: Wagner Moura: "Brazil lives a genocide of the black population" | Culture



The Berlin festival has always been prone to political films, so, that outside Marighella the last film in the official section - although out of competition - of the last edition of Dieter Kosslick - director of the contest for 18 years - makes all the sense for the Berlinale. Marighella assumes the directorial debut of the Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, long career marked by his Pablo Escobar of the series Narcos, who has chosen to illustrate the last five years of his life - from 1964 to 1969- Carlos Marighella, Brazilian politician and writer, leader of the Communist Party of his country, which was expelled when, after the coup d'état of April 1964, decided to move to armed struggle.

Moura has more than fulfilled as a filmmaker. its Marighella It is vibrant, full of action - the actor brought the lesson well learned after starring Elite troop and its continuation-, filmed with verve, with characters with nuances ... The film may suffer from a certain Manichaeism, but in Brazil, the times are running, and Moura has prioritized the obvious parallelism that her country is experiencing just half a century after that Marighella was executed by the police after finishing writing Minimanual of the urban guerrilla.

Hence, at the press conference, in which Moura was accompanied by 30 members of the film's artistic and technical team, there was much anger and excitement. There were even actors who cried. Moura explained that he was not going to direct the film. "My first instinct, after reading the biography on which the script is based, was to produce the film, because I did not find a director, I jumped in, since I did not think it would be so complicated, I only consider myself an actor who directs. Instead, it has been the most important artistic experience of my life. " About the dates on which its thriller, the director has broken down: "We started it in 2015, after the coup d'état[against[contraDilma Rousseff]. It is not an answer to a specific government. I hope my film is bigger than the current Government of Bolsonaro, and it is the first response of the culture to this situation. Marighella speaks of someone who resisted then and addresses those who resist now: the LGTBI collective, the blacks, the inhabitants of the favelas ... ".

Moura has spoken most of the press conference in English, slowly searching her words, nervous. On the parallelism of what counts today, and underlined at various times (for example, someone takes a camera and looks at the camera, the viewer), he explained: "Marighella, black social leader, was murdered in 1969 in a car shot by police, half a century later, a black social activist [se refiere a Marielle Franco] She was killed in Rio in a car by members of the security forces. The situation of tortures and murders is the same. It is the state that has not changed, and he chooses his enemies. The parallels are crystal clear to me. It's not a documentary, the characters are amalgams of real people, but situations and feelings are. "

And it increased its forcefulness: "We suffered a horrific situation, the worst that Brazil has experienced since the dictatorship, today there is a genocide against the black population, against those who live in the favelas, we have a homophobic president, I know that when we return to Brazil we will be covered of shit, but I'm not worried, the most important thing was to release this movie. " Are you asking for an armed struggle? "No, I do not want someone to rise up in arms, No, the film talks about sacrifice, about what those men and women left behind for the common good, at key moments there are people who decide to stay at home and others who do what they They have to do, and I admire them, I send a message to the public to resist, it's like the final dialogue between one of Marighella's friends, his ALN group [Acción Liberadora Nacional], with the policeman who is torturing him and informing him that they have killed Carlos: 'You lost', he snaps. And the guerrilla responds: 'No, you lost.' Because there are moral victories, because the resistance then and now will be unstoppable, because it will live in each kid who receives that message ".

The rest of the cast and the two producers present in the room already warned about the great difficulty of releasing Marighella in his country. "We would like to launch it after its pass here in Berlin, but we have to resort even to crowdfunding." The musician Seu Jorge, one of the most important in Brazil, who plays Marighella, explained the hardness of his preparation, and the importance for him "that the film premieres at this time." Moura added: "Bolsonaro does like all the Brazilian fascist governments: first you criminalize culture, then you change the meaning of words ... in schools, especially in private schools, you talk about the French revolution, and you do not dedicate line to talk about the Brazilian, a black revolution, history is hidden, we have to rethink our country. "

In the end, after commenting that his biggest influence has been the brothers Dardenne - "Believe it or not" -, Moura returned to the premiere of the film in her country and how expensive film is in Brazil: "We have to think about something, because it would be sad if the people in whom Marighella thought did not see the film Would you project it to Lula in jail? I had not thought about it, but I would be delighted. "

.



Source link