February 27th, Wednesday, 7:00PM New England Premiere

Balagan Film Series Presents:
Santiago (2006) 80 minutes
By João Moreira Salles (Brazil) Director in attendance

Coolidge Corner Theatre
290 Harvard St. Brookline, MA
Tickets: $9 general admission

João Moreira Salles is one of Brazil’s foremost documentary filmmakers. In 1992 he began shooting a film about Santiago, the butler in his childhood home who left an indelible mark upon the family. Santiago was an educated man who, in addition to his work, produced some 60,000 pages of stories documenting his surroundings as well as tales of aristocratic lifestyles, including that of the house in which he himself served.

Through his personal voice-over,  Salles sheds light on his family and childhood, and on the reasons why the film took so long to complete. The result is an elegant mosaic with two parallel narratives, dealing with universal topics such as memory, identity, and documentary filmmaking. Santiago has been screened at some of the most important documentary film festivals and recently took the Grand Prize at Cinéma du Réel in Paris.

Director Biography
João Moreira Salles is a documentary filmmaker. In 1985 he wrote the screenplay for the documentary series ‘Japan, a Journey in Time’. In 1987 he directed ‘China, The Empire of the Center’ and wrote the screenplay for ‘Krajberg, the Poet of the Remains’. Two years later he directed the television series ‘America’ and the documentary ‘Poetry is one or two lines and behind it a huge landscape’ about poet Ana Cristina César.

In 1990 he directed Blues. For cable channel GNT, he directed the documentary ‘Jorge Amado’, about race relation in Brazil and the series ‘Football’, co-directed with Arthur Fontes. Together with Katia Lund, he directed ‘News of a Personal War’, about urban violence in Brazil. In 2000 he directed ‘The Valley’, a documentary about the environmental devastation of the Paraíba Valley and ‘Santa Cruz: Holy Cross’ about the growth of an evangelical church in the suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. Both these films were made with journalist Marcos Sá Corrêa. In 2002, João Salles directed ‘Nelson Freire’, his first documentary for cinema. In 2004, he launched “Intermissions” a behind-the-scenes look at the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazilian president. This documentary reveals Lula’s private life in the brink of a historic moment in Brazilian politics.

Credits:
Director: João Moreira Salles
Photography: Walter Carvalho
Sound: Jorge Saldanha
Editing: Eduardo Escorel, Livia Serpa
Production and distribution: VideoFilmes Produções Artisticas
Praça Nossa Senhora da Glória, 46
22211-110 Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
videofilmes@videofilmes.com.br