An excerpt from the booklet interview by David Jenkins

DJ: How did you discover this world of Brazilian rodeo?

GM: The culture of rural life in Brazil is very strong. Especially in the collective consciousness of the country and in the minds of Brazilians. The vaquejadas, historically, come from the time
when bulls would roam free in these big open landscapes. The landowners and the farmers would then capture the bulls when they wanted to sell them. They would put on a big party where the
cowboys would go around and catch the bulls in these open fields. It’s emblematic of a shift of this post-capitalist society in Brazil –this post-capitalist idea of change. In Brazil, they’ve embraced this idea of the vaquejadas and made it into a big industry. Now it’s one of the biggest agro-business events in Brazil. Country culture is very strong, and a lot of money is generated. Even outside of Brazil. Not many people know that.

DJ: The film is shot by Diego Garcia who previously worked on Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cemetery of Splendour [2015]. Do you feel there’s any crossover between these two films?

GM: When we met, and Diego showed me his work, one of the things that I liked was that he’d done some solo video art installations. Very quickly he brought a sense of emotionality to the project.
Even though we had never met before, and we lived in different countries, we had a lot in common in terms of references. Diego had only done two fi lms at that time. We met and discussed the
fi lm and it was like love at fi rst sight. He noticed that this part of Brazil is presented a lot in ‘Cinema Nova’, the new cinema in Brazil, from directors like Glauber Rocha, so Diego’s idea with
this fi lm was to re-create the rural interior of Brazil as it actually is nowadays. The film plays with the idea of ambiguity: the ambiguity of the bodies; the ambiguity of the landscapes; the ambiguity of economic transformation; the ambiguity of colour.

DJ: What creative discussions did you have with Diego during the filming?

GM: We took a lot of bets on a lot of things. One of the big discussions we had was whether we use shot and reverse-shot, and where if one didn’t work, would we use the other. It was repeated, but the camera has to be in the right place. There are shots that last about eight to ten minutes with no cut. We had to be really sure – and secure – about what we were filming. We had to believe in our instincts. One of the essential things in cinema is the distance you place between the subjects – and the space between bodies. One of the things we discovered when we were fi lming was that, if the characters moved too close to one another, it was only reinforcing stereotypes within those characters. We gave the subjects space to break down the stereotypes and let them breathe and soak up the context. The discussions that took place between director and cinematographer were often about the distance of the camera from an object or a person. What is the right distance to put between two objects? We discovered was that there never was a right distance. But there is an honest distance.

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David Jenkins' complete interview, from which this excerpt is taken, appears in the booklet which accompanies the release.

Contents
Disc Info


Brazil, 2015
Length / Feature
(Blu-ray/24fps): 104 minutes
(DVD/25fps): 100 minutes
Length / Special features:
59 minutes
Sound:
Blu-ray: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio / 2.0 Stereo LPCM (48k/24-bit)
DVD: 5.1 Dolby Surround / 2.0 Stereo Dolby Digital
Colour
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Language: Portuguese

Blu-ray: BD50 / 1080 / 24fps / Region ABC
DVD: PAL / DVD9 / Region 0

Blu-Ray: £19.99
DVD: £12.99
Release Date: 16 April 2018

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Blu-Ray
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