Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
Abstract
Amor e desamor, by Gerson Tavares, was the first film entirely shot in Brasília, in 1966, when the newly inaugurated city was not yet fully built. In this film, a couple of protagonists travel through the city, exchange loving confidences and discuss their emotions. The analysis of the film, supported by reflections on cinema as a historiographical source, offers the possibility of understanding, beyond the landscape of Brasilia’s architecture and urbanism, the feelings of detachment that appears as traces of the characters’ relationship with the place. Considering the criticism of Brasília’s modern architecture made in the same period of the film’s production and dissemination, it seems to clash with the discourse of other historiographical sources, which can be seen as a “counter-history” (FERRO, 1975). This fiction film, treated as a historical archive that relies on affective accounts, constitutes an alternative historiographical source of the city. This hypothesis suggests that non-belonging and boredom were feelings shared by subjects who migrated to Brasília, as a trauma of moving to a newly founded city. This was also demonstrated in other historiographical sources such as Clarice Lispector`s literature and the landscape of Brasília itself. The film operates as a critique of the history of modern architecture, as it gives a glimpse of the new capital as a psychosocial place that produces spatial concerns. Thus, the voids of the city invade the characters as they mirror their existential void.
Liz Sandoval is a Brazilian architect and urban researcher, focusing studies on the intersections between cinema and the city in the relations of representation and social practice, mainly on the modern and planned city of Brasilia. She received a doctor degree in Theory and History of Architecture and Urbanism (2022) at the University of Brasília, researching in Theory, History and Criticism. She has published articles on Brasília’s cinematography, held exhibitions and founded Cinema Urbana – architecture film festival in 2018.
André Costa is an architect and urban planner from the FAU at the University of Brasília. He holds a master’s degree in Contemporary Culture with a book on the singer Björk, “As Aventuras Subjetivas de Björk” (2014), a PhD in Brazilian Cinema with a thesis on the work of filmmaker Karim Aïnouz (2016). He was curator of “Arquiteturas” – Lisbon International Architecture Film Festival (2019). He has collaborated with the curatorship of Cinema Urbana since 2018. He is a professor at the Department of Expression and Representation Project at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of Brasília.
8:30 pm - 10:30 pm
Friday 2nd December, 2022