Arquivo

The month of October and the 28th Mostra Internacional de Cinema celebrate the 20th death anniversary of the ingenious French filmmaker François Truffaut (1932-1984). 20 years ago, the Mostra welcomed another cinema genius, the Spanish documentarist and cinematographer, Nestor Almendros, who also worked in several Truffaut’s films. Almendros had just arrived in Rio de Janeiro and had a local newspaper handy. He was livid from an article he’d just read saying Truffaut had been confirmed as the president of jury for the former Festrio Film Festival, announced for November that year. Almendros couldn’t stand the lie behind the story, as he was coming from Paris where he’d just bid farewell to Truffaut lying in a hospital bed in a comma from a brain tumor. A few days later, on October 21st, Truffaut passed away and Almendros waited in vain for the newspaper’s retreat. I had a personal involvement with François Truffaut in 1973 thanks to the wonderful Day for Night. With his usual generosity and thoughtfulness, Truffaut squeezed me into his very tight schedule in the Cannes Festival that year to give me an informal interview sitting on the second floor stairs of the Carlton Hotel. I owe the driving force behind the Mostra to magical moments like this, moments that have brought us – as mere spectators - closer to the creative spirit and ingenuity of so many cinema geniuses, like François Truffaut. (Leon Cakoff) Day for Night is one of Truffaut’s most acclaimed films, whereby he expresses his deep love for cinema with tenderness and affection – the hallmarks of his personality. The object of his film is the “cinema freaks”, people who in real life cannot be away from a film set for too long. Truffaut himself plays the role of Ferrand, a filmmaker in the beginning of a film production called “Meet Pamela”, which is far from being an art movie. For Ferrand, this is not a major problem. What really pumps up his adrenaline is the fact that he is there behind the cameras, under the spotlights, dealing with the production’s agenda, the special effects, the props, the chemistry between the actors, and all the small but crucial details that make a film exist. In his film’s cast, one recognizes the typical characters that inhabit a film set, people most certainly based on Truffaut’s own experience as a director: the emotionally unstable star who hopes to overcome all her existential problems now that she has married her doctor, a much older man; the film’s protagonist who assumes his homosexuality as he grows older; the young actor whose real-life passions take away his concentration. And the myriad supporting actors, who play a key role in this process – a little magic, a little insane – that must be there for a film to materialize.