The Competition section of the 4th BRICS Film Festival will screen ten films, two from each country – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The international jury, responsible for choosing the best film, has already been selected.
Five film critics and experts were invited to be members of the jury: Martin Botha from South Africa, who will also be teaching the South African film history course during the festival, Qin Xiqing from China, Rita Dutta from India, Kirill Razlogov from Russia, and Susy Freitas from Brazil.
The jury was put together in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine), created in 2011 to represent hundreds of critics from several Brazilian states, and with the institutional support of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), a worldwide association of film critics with representation in 50 countries.
Jury Members
Martin Botha / South Africa
Martin Botha is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the University of Cape Town. He has published more than 200 texts on South African cinema and media, including six books: Images of South Africa: the rise of the alternative film (1992); Movies, Moguls, Mavericks: South African cinema: 1979-1991 (1992); Kronieken van Zuid-Afrika: De films van Manie van Rensburg (1997); Jans Rautenbach: Dromer, baanbreker en auteur (2006); Marginal Lives and Painful Pasts: South African cinema after apartheid (2007); and South African Cinema 1896 – 2010 (Intellect Books, 2012). He is a film critic, a member of FIPRESCI, and has participated in international juries of several festivals, such as the Tallinn Black Nights International Film Festival, the Tromso International Film Festival, the Mannheim-Heidelberg Film Festival, and recently the Transilvania International Film Festival.
Qin Xiqing / China
Qin Xiqing is a film historian and critic. She holds a PhD in Film Studies and currently works as a research fellow and professor at the Institute of Film & TV Arts, at the National Academy of Chinese Arts (NACA). Her research includes post-modern theories, Chinese silent film history, and feminist film studies. Her publications include Jean-Francois Lyotard: A Post-modern Theorist Flying his Own Colors (1992), Chinese Film History (co-author, 1996), European-American Early Cinema and Chinese Early Cinema 1920-1930 (2008), Western Feminist Cinema (2008), and Film and Culture (2015). She has translated into Chinese Movie History, by Douglas Gomery and Clara Pafort-Overduin. As editor-in-chief of the foreign section of the Encyclopaedia of Chinese Film and TV, she is currently working on compiling and editing entries that cover world cinema extensively.
Rita Dutta / India
Rita Dutta is a film critic and member of FIPRESCI. She is an undergraduate professor at the University of Calcutta and a PhD candidate in Cinema. She writes extensively about cinema and edits an international film journal. She was a jury member for a number of international festivals, such as Cannes, Pusan, Cairo, Kiev. She gave lectures in Istanbul, Macedonia, Poland, etc. She is currently editing a book on Indian cinema.
Kirill Razlogov / Russia
Kirill Razlogov graduated from the Lomonosov Moscow State University (1969). He holds a PhD in Arts and Cultural Studies. He started his career as a researcher at the Russian Film Archive in 1969. He is the author and/or editor of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles on film and media, cultural history, art history, and cultural policy. As a journalist, he wrote for Moskovskaya Pravda and Izvestia, and was a columnist for the weekly magazine Kompania (until 2005). Since 2001, he has written, produced and hosted the weekly TV show Movie Cult on the Rossiya-Kultura TV channel. Other TV series he presented include Cinemarathon (1993-1995), Century of Cinema (1994-1995), and From the Avant-Garde Film to Video-Art (2000-2001). He was the Programming Director of the Moscow International Film Festival from 1999 to 2005. In 2009 he returned to the position, which he holds until the present date.
Susy Freitas / Brazil
Susy Freitas holds a degree in Language, a degree in Journalism, and a master’s degree in Communication Sciences from the Federal University of Amazonas. She is a professor of Communication and writes for the Cine Set website (www.cineset.com.br). She is a member of the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine) and of Elviras, a collective of women film critics. She has published essays in the following books: Documentário brasileiro – 100 filmes essenciais (2017); Animação brasileira – 100 filmes essenciais (2018); and Trajetória da crítica de cinema no Brasil (2019). She has also edited Cine Set e a Crítica Cinematográfica no Amazonas (Casa Literária, 2019) and authored two poetry volumes, Véu sem voz (Bartlebee, 2015) and Alerta, Selvagem (Patuá, 2019).
Selected features
Brazil
The Young Baumanns, directed by Bruna Carvalho Almeida, tells the mysterious story of a group of young people who go missing after the summer holidays. Scenes from home VHS footage of their last family moments are used to unfold the plot of this mystery.
Children of Macunaíma, directed by Miguel Antunes Ramos, tells the story of three indigenous families living in Northern Brazil. The plot revolves around characters who keep moving around in search of their identities.
Russia
The Lord Eagle, directed by Eduard Nivikov, takes place in 1930 in Yakutia, in the far north of Russia. It tells the story of the simple, everyday lives of people tending to cows, hunting and fishing, until one day an eagle, a sacred animal to the village, enters the garden of an elderly couple, altering their daily routine.
Tutor, a drama produced and directed by Anton Kolomeets, tells the story of 17-year-old Savva, a young man who is preparing for university admission. When his parents go on vacation, they leave him the task of studying for his entrance exams. Savva then finds a foreign literature teacher on the “Your Tutor” website.
India
A Timeline, directed by Churni Ganguly, explores the impermanence of existence and immortality through the lives that have been touched. The plot mourns the death of “isms” and freethinkers, but it also has hopes for future leaders. The film is not just about any date, but about each day we lose from our lives while looking at our screens instead of making a difference in the real world.
Aalorukkam, directed by V C Abhilash and produced by Jolly Lonappan, tells the story of Pappu Pisharadi, a father searching for his son, who left home 16 years before, with the only wish to see him again.
China
White Snake, directed by Amp Wong and Zhao Ji, tells the story of the Chinese fable “The Legend of the White Snake”. A snake spirit named Blanca loses her memory when disguising herself as a woman and ends up falling in love with a snake hunter. This, however, strongly upsets her sister Verta, the green snake demon.
How Long Will I Love U, directed by Lun Su, mixes fantasy, drama, romance, and comedy. The feature addresses the distinctions in society in a fun and cheerful way for all viewers to enjoy, even children. The film portrays all the tough decisions we must make and their consequences, which can affect the rest of our lives.
South Africa
The Tokoloshe, directed by Jerome Pikwane, tells the story of a poor, emotionally repressed young woman who is desperate to lead a controlled life. However, to save a tormented young child’s life, she must first find courage to face an insatiable demon from her past.
When Babies Don’t Come, directed by Molatelo Mainetje, is a documentary that takes the audience on a journey through in vitro fertilization treatment, visits to a traditional healer, and rituals to ask for one’s ancestors’ assistance. The feature is an intimate portrait of infertility.
BRICS Film Festival – The BRICS Film Festival brings together film productions and events from the five member states, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, in annual editions on a rotating basis. In 2019, Brazil will host the 4th BRICS Film Festival from 23 September to 9 October. The event will be held in the city of Niterói and will be organized by the Department of Film and Video at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), in cooperation with the City Government of Niterói, with the institutional support of the Brazilian Film Agency (ANCINE) and the sponsorship of the Special Secretariat of Culture at the Ministry of Citizenship.
Event details
4th BRICS Film Festival
23 September – 9 October
Venues
Reserva Cultural – Av. Visconde do Rio Branco, 880 – São Domingos, Niterói
UFF Arts Center (Centro de Artes UFF) – Rua Miguel de Frias, 9 – Icaraí, Niterói
IACS – Rua Lara Vilela, 126 – São Domingos, Niterói
For the full schedule of the 4th BRICS Film Festival, visit www.bricsfilmfestival.com.br.
* The programme may be changed without notice.
Public Relations
Flávia Clemente
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Thalita Queiroz
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