Actor Guilherme Fontes, through some very good contacts in
the federal government, has assured millions of dollars for a project
to film the life of Brazilian media mogul Assis Chateaubriand.
This too sweet of a deal angered many filmmakers who were on line
to get some federal financing. Here, a filmmaker blows the whistle.
Brazil will spend, in a single movie, public money enough to produce 10
good Brazilian films! Brazilian cinema is not an industry,
a business like in Hollywood, but when actor
Guilherme Fontes’s overbudgeted project which will deal
with TV and newspaper mogul Assis Chateaubriand received official approval,
it reminded me of director Michael Cimino’s disastrous
superproduction Heaven’s Gate and I asked myself: “What are we
getting for so much money? Where are the bad judgment or the irregularities
in this case?”
Irregularity number 1 In 1994, as published
on the Diário Oficial da
Uniăo, Parliament approved for the year 1995,
a total value dedicated to Brazilian Cultural
Projects enough to produce 80 moving pictures with an
average duration of 1:30h and average cost of $1,200.
In Brazil, actors and technicians don’t demand
Hollywoodian wages. It happens that the Culture
Ministry has given one eighth of the national yearly cake to
one single film project. This when there are nearly
100 movie projects waiting for this chance.
Irregularity number 2 That project was
approved “ad referendum”, which means it has not
been judged by the Film and Video Committee (CNIC-IBAC) as other
film projects have to be.
Irregularity number 3 Authorized on
December 11, the Chateaubriand project gave only 20 days
– and this during the Christmas season for the people involved to raise
the budget money from sponsors. It’s known that
even experienced producers as Dona Flor and Her
Two Husbands‘s Luís Carlos Barreto usually take
more than one year to raise funds for a middle-budgeted film.
Irregularity number 4 That privileged
project had no budget until the beginning of December
95, while there is a pioneer project called Cabeça
de Paraíba with exactly the same objectives
producing a movie with miniseries version, telling the life
of Assis Chateaubriand, the father of Brazilian TV
being developed together with the Culture
Ministry since 1992. And this miniseries screenplay
has been published and registered since May 11,
1994, before the release on August 4, 1994 of
journalist Fernando de Moraes bestseller Chatô, o Rei
do Brasil.
Brazil was producing 100 films a year in the
`70s, but his number had fallen to zero 1992 when
President Fernando Collor de Mello closed
Embrafilme. Recently, the national movie industry has
shown signs of life. An important mark of the renaissance
of the Brazilian Cinema was the film Carlota
Joaquina by Carla Camurati . It cost about $600,000 and it
was a big hit in Brazil, selling more than $4 million
in tickets.Walter Salles’s Terra Estrangeira
(Foreign Land), another successful quality film, cost even
less and was invited to compete in the US Sundance
Film Festival.
The most expensive movie finished in 1995 was
O Quatrilho, produced by Luís Carlos Barreto,
who previously produced Dona Flor and Her Two
Husbands“. Barreto spent $1.6 million in
O Quatrilho and was able to sell 60% of its shares at the Stock
Exchange. Mr. Barreto produced a first class film which has received
applause from the audience and has even been considered for an Oscar
nomination. The average budget to produce a Brazilian film is about
$1.2 million. That’s not that little. After all, this is close to the
budget of many successful Woody Allen’s films. Quentim Tarantino’s Sex, Lies and Videotape cost less than this, got a prize in Cannes and pleased the public.
That
creative way of producing is appropriate for a country like Brazil.
Moreover, the most successful Brazilian film of all times, Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands made a mere $11 million. And this during a period that spanned more than 10 years. A Dama do Lotaçăo with superstar Sônia Braga sold $ 7 million in tickets. Lucio Flávio $ 6 million.
Now
a minister authorizes $12 million for a single movie. Big money is no
warranty for success. We have many expensive flops in Hollywood to
prove that. In Brazil, I remember for instance a project called Chico Rei,
film and miniseries directed by Walter Lima Jr., an experienced film
maker who failed. And he had plenty of money thanks to a co-production
with some European countries in Europe. The costs soared and the
disaster was so big that the negative film rolls are still in the lab
waiting to be paid.
And even if the
Chateaubriand project becomes a huge hit, I believe that Brazil would
benefit much more if it had ten new movies made instead of only one.
That would also mean jobs for 1,000 film professionals instead of the
100 who will be benefited. Besides that, with this kind of money ten
Brazilian filmmakers, experienced or not, could have an opportunity to
exercise their talent. This way, we would have ten options and we would
multiply by ten the possibilities of producing works of art as well as
money making hits.
We have to start
producing again 50 or 100 films a year. (The United States produces
more than 300). Then, in a large market, yes, one or other movie may
cost a fortune and put at risk its company as it happened in Hollywood
with Orion, Carolco and Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer/UA. What will happen if we
put in jeopardy our embryonic market which has released only five films
in 1995?
The first time actor Guilherme
Fontes announced in December 1994 his intention to produce a film on
Chateaubriand life, he declared he would need no more than $5 million
dollars to make the film. At that time he said to be in negotiations so
Al Pacino would play Chateaubriand. According to Fontes himself, $3
million would go for film production and $2 million for publicity. With
$12 million, what is he going to do with the other $ 7 million?
Several documents about this question can be viewed in the Internet at http://www.ibase.br/~cinemabrazil/forum.html
Marcos Manhăes
Marins, graduated from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, is a
filmmaker and has studied at the British Film Institute. You can
contact him through his E-mail: cinemabrazil@ax.ibase.org.br or phone: 55-21-971-1567. Marins has been directing the project “Chateaubriand – Cabeça de Paraíba”
