NY BRAZILIAN FILM SERIES

Winner of the Best Documentary Statue at last year's Cinema Brazil Grand Prize, the South American awards equivalent to the Oscars, director Lina Chamie's deeply sensitive, honest and immersive exploration on the artistic world is as unique and vibrant as the artist the film portraits. While the film captures an intense sense of honesty personified in graffiti and large murals artist Eduardo Kobra's moving testimonies and personal stories, it also leaves an impressive mark with its techniques attributes. It is impossible to resist the superb work in the cinematography, always moving and speeding away, tenderly capturing its subject and muse, turning darkness into light and contemplating both nature, daily co-existence, landscape and art with incredible aerials; the editing geniously cuts the interviews, the paintings, goes back and forth in time, while venturing through other terrains as it leads the viewer with confidence; and the soundtrack, elegantly blending rhythms and bringing a sense of smooth, upbeat and calm tunes to the story. Chamie conceives an intimate and familiar atmosphere reflected on the self portrait narrated and explained in the artist's very own words. The worldly renowned painter and peace activist Kobra opens up about his feelings towards his art, his existence, the turbulent relationship to his father, how he was rescued by his wife, the life-changing experience of becoming a father, his connections and disbeliefs with the world, as well as perspectives in his generation. A love letter to art, family, forgiveness and the simple things that make life grand, this is a brilliant and compelling work of non-fiction resistance cinema. Bravo!