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Where Passion Burns Like Fire: A Retrospective of German-Brazilian Relations in Cinema

May 15th, 2014
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News from Berlin - From May 2nd to June 11th the retrospective on the intersected histories of Brazilian and German cinema will be hosted at the Zeughauskin, the German Historical Museum in Berlin. “Where Passion Burns Like Fire” shows the long-term cultural exchange that has been taking place between Brazil and Germany over the past century, and it is characterized by historical and ideological film productions.

The mutual fascination of Brazilian and German filmmakers over the years can be identified in the creation of clichés and critical knowledge, in the representation of samba, football and carnival, and in the search for reflection and understanding of each others different cultural identities. The retrospective presents numerous rare film prints and programs, such as the earliest known recordings from the Amazon region, which emerged from an expedition of the German ethnographer Theodor Koch-Grünberg in 1911, and the re-release of the recently restored silent film ‘The Women's Shelter of Rio’, a flash adventure story about the transatlantic trade in women.

The collaboration between the politically engaged, aesthetically radical Brazilian Cinema Novo and the New German Cinema will be presented, with the example of Glauber Rocha's classic ‘Antônio das Mortes' (1969) and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's ‘The Niklashausen Fart’ (1970). The screenings will also be introduced by several notable names such as Lúcia Nagib, one of the best current experts on the Brazilian film history.

The event is curated by Wolfgang Fuhrmann and Philipp Stiasny who, by looking back at a long tradition of German-Brazilian mutual observations through film, will attempt to provide different and surprising perspectives on this relationship and let the lasting fascination for each other emerge. The retrospective is sponsored by the Capital Cultural Fund. Cooperation partners include the Brazilian Embassy in Berlin, the German Federal Film Archive, CineGraph Babelsberg, the Ibero-American Institute and the Latin American Institute of the Free University of Berlin.

News from Berlin - Berlin Global