Latest Photo Galleries
Brazilian Markets
17h16 Bovespa |
-0,17% | 124.171 |
16h43 Gold |
0,00% | 117 |
16h59 Dollar |
-0,48% | 5,2424 |
16h30 Euro |
+0,49% | 2,65250 |
ADVERTISING
Brazilian Film Director Anna Muylaert Goes from the Maid's Room to the Red Carpet
10/26/2015 - 10h42
Advertising
ANNA VIRGINIA BALLOUSSIER
FROM SÃO PAULO
Anna Muylaert will be back in an hour. Every two months, the film director born among the São Paulo elite pays an average of US$30 to travel coach to Goiânia.
She pays another US$30 for a transfer in the direction of Abadiânia, located 80 km from Goiana, the state's capital. The "John of God', a mystic who executes spiritual surgeries inside a blue and white house, has her back.
It's to this Ivo Pitanguy of the soul (a reference to the famed plastic surgeon from Rio), sought after by politicians (Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva) and celebrities (Fábio Assunção and Juliana Paes), that Anna has been running to since she finished filming "The Second Mother" ("Que Horas Ela Volta?") in February of 2014.
"I was not well, hadn't dated for four years, I was coming out of an intense work rhythm."
Instead of hitting the brakes, she bought another airplane ticket, this time for Los Angeles, where she spent the month of October. She hired Hollywood "publicist" Fredell Pogodin. "Of the 109 films she's produced, 40 went up for consideration," the director said.
Anna is the first woman to represent Brazil in the selections competing for best foreign film nomination in 30 years. Her other feature length films were praised ("Durval Discos", "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "Chamada a Cobrar") by critics, but they didn't come close to having the kind of audience around the new film: 470 thousand people to date.
The buzz around "The Second Mother" gained momentum in January, when Regina Case and Camila Márdila split the award for Best Actress at the Sundance festival, for their roles as Val and Jessica, mother and daughter, domestic subservient and determined Vestibular (the rigorous national college entrance examination in Brazil) candidate.
Val raises the son of Madame Barbara (Karine Teles), matriarch who works in fashion, and Mr. Carlos (Lourenço Mutarelli), frustrated painter who can be found in a Ramones t-shirt. Left in Pernambuco, Jessica comes to live with her mother in her bosses' home.
Anna said she wanted to film a skullcap she also wore -and, if you've had a maid before, it was probably also her style. "I wanted to insert young and cool bosses, not the bosses of an old and boring elite."
Ana Luiza Machado da Silva Muylaert -she added an "n" to her name because she finds it more artistic,- grew up in a big house with a pool in Alto de Pinheiros and today lives in a big house with a pool in Alto da Lapa.
It is not uncommon to see maids in uniform and white aprons in this São Paulo neighborhood. The director employs one for US$515 a month, but has done away with the formal dress requirements.
After lunch, the director lays out on a "chaise lounge" at the edge of the pool and says that Val has the personality of her childhood nanny, Dagmar.
Anna's mother, a Celina housewife, found breastfeeding "tacky", like many women from her period. "Dinner was served french style, with trays", she recalls.
Anna also enjoys Buddhism and meditation. More than one of her mantras comes from Mick Jagger. She spent time with the Rolling Stones on the set of British filmmaker Julien Temple's "Running Out of Luck" (1987).
While working as an Assistant Director for Feature Length Films in Brazil, she learned to never "do anything you don't want to do" from Mick.
In the past, she forgave colleagues who slapped her butt on set and didn't always have the courage to demand credit for scripts that ended up only being signed by men. Today, she thinks she has learned to impose herself "the hard way".
"The man humiliates me, shits on my head, and I try to address him with respect. If you get angry, he says you're crazy. But, sometimes, shouting is necessary."
Translated by SUGHEY RAMIREZ
Read the article in the original language
Pablo Saborido | ||
Brazilian film director Anna Muylaert |