FRANCE: BRAZILIAN DIRECTING LEGEND RUY GUERRA'S FILM 'ESTORVO' NOMINATED FOR CANNES GOLDERN PALM

Record ID: 389281

  • Title: FRANCE: BRAZILIAN DIRECTING LEGEND RUY GUERRA'S FILM 'ESTORVO' NOMINATED FOR CANNES GOLDERN PALM
  • Date: 13th May 2000
  • Summary: CANNES, FRANCE (MAY 13, 2000) (REUTERS TV) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DIRECTOR RUY GUERRA SAYING: "It's difficult for the common people because they are not used to this kind of language, and I know that. I think all history of the movies has been the problem with movie makers against industry, and this film is againt industry today, so it's difficult to find a place for him."
  • Embargoed: 28th May 2000 13:00
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  • Location: CANNES, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA1A8GH4TM5ZOQXV7ROR4SHJVYZ
  • Story Text: Brazilian directing legend Ruy Guerra admits that his film "Estorvo" makes heavy viewing as it portrays a man on the verge of insanity in a South American city. But even if the film is no box office smash, "Estorvo's" daring filming techniques and strong acting have won it a nomination for the Cannes Festival's Golden Palm.
    "Estorvo" raises few laughs as it recounts an anonymous man's desperate search for a hiding place after an unknown but terrifying caller knocks at his door. Based on a book by Brazilian singer-songwriter Chico Buarque, the screenplay portrays the man's painful encounters with the ghosts of his past as he turns to his ex-wife, his sister and a long-forgotten friend for help.
    Sinister characters from bikers, drug dealers and a cocaine-snorting nymphomaniac offer the man little hope of rescue as he sinks further down a spiral of anguish and betrayal.
    Guerra said he had set out to shoot a film that stood out from the mainstream and the picture certainly looks different from other Cannes contenders.
    Shaky hand-held camera shots lend a sense of immediacy to the action, while washed out colours add to the gloom.
    Bianca Byington plays the man's sister, portraying a strained relationship full of hints of incest.
    She said Guerra kept his actors constantly on edge by never letting them know whether they were on camera, while the script continually evolved as new inspiration struck at the last minute.
    "There is that scene, I don't know if you remember, where I spread that marmalade on the toast, and I'm going to eat then I'm not going to eat, I'm going to eat and I'm not going to eat, it was good, it was an idea that just came like that. Because we had a script which was a bit dull, which said, 'Oh, my mother needs this, she doesn't need that', it was a prosaic text like that, banal. I had this idea of repeating the lines one after the other without any logical order, in a way to give the idea of someone who speaks but does not really have something to say," Byington said.
    Cuban actor Jorge Perrugoria who plays the central character said it had been an honour to star in a film that dared to be different.
    "All that we see in the cinema is very conventional, the most beautiful thing about this film is the risk taken by Ruy Guerra, who is an emblamatic figure for Latin American cinema, and that up until today he continues with his research," Perrugoria said.
    ENDS-
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