2024-04-19 23:11:20
Many spectators left the Luxembourg Cinematheque theater with “tears in the corner of their eyes”. The film “My name is Gal” by Dandara Ferreira, shown at the opening of the Brazilian Cinema Festival, last Wednesday, moved the many Brazilians (and not only) who were present.
For an hour and a half, the audience was transported to the heat and sea of Rio de Janeiro. This is the 8th Festival organized by the association “Cultura Brasileira no Luxembourg”.
The director who was at the session, at the end, answered the audience’s questions and explained that she decided to make this film because it was time to tell the story of “Gal Costa, one of the best singers of Brazilian popular music”.
Dandara met the artist, who became known for wearing strong red lipstick, when she was a girl and as an adult she decided to dedicate her art to showing the life of Gal Costa. “I grew up in Bahia in a musical household, because my father was very close to Caetano, Gilberto Gil and Gal was always the most played voice in my house”, recalls the director.
Gal Costa was one of the artists who, together with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil and Maria Betânia, built the Tropicália movement that changed Brazilian music and art in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dandara Ferreira, director of the film “My name is Gal” which opened the Brazilian Cinema Festival in Luxembourg. © Credits: Anouk Antony
“A libertarian singer”
“For us, Brazilian women, Gal represents a woman who broke down several barriers, in the 1960s and 1970s, a libertarian singer who expressed herself through her body, using red lipstick during the dictatorship”, explains the director. “A time when being an artist and a woman was not easy”, she reinforces.
The country was in the middle of a dictatorship, which would only end in 1985, and Gal Costa’s music and attitude were a form of resistance and affirmation of freedom.
The film shows the blossoming of Gal Costa who, from a shy girl from Bahia, becomes a libertarian and inspiring woman for millions of Brazilian women.
Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos was born and as a child she rehearsed, singing with a pan on her head to “hear the resonance and test the projection of her voice”, says Dandara. She traveled to Rio de Janeiro and was just over 20 years old when she recorded her first hit.
“Gal exploded into Tropicália, a transformation triggered because he became aware that he had to speak out and be an active voice in the movement to challenge the dictatorship”, he highlights. An evocation that makes sense today.
“The film makes a parallel, with different proportions, with the recent past of the pandemic, when cinema was at a standstill”, at the same time that Bolsonaro was president of Brazil. And it is a warning “that this past does not happen again”, he warns. “Now we are in a time of hope, with new cultural policies”, he highlights.
Dandara Ferreira started by making a series about the singer for HBO and “six months later she invited me to make this film”. The singer gave the director complete freedom “because she wanted to sit in the movie theater and be surprised”, reports Dandara Ferrreira. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible. Gal Costa died shortly before the premiere.
“The issue of women is an absolute priority”
“This Festival is a very timely initiative because it resumes cultural cooperation between Brazil and Luxembourg, choosing this year an absolutely priority theme which is the issue of women in its different facets, for its valorization and the fight against discrimination against women, themes to which we must dedicate ourselves individually and collectively”, explains João Mendes Pereira, Brazilian ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg who was present at the opening of the festival.
The Brazilian ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg, João Mendes Pereira. © Credits: Anouk Antony
“A priority for the Brazilian government that intends to fight against feminicide and violence against women, which is absurd, but which unfortunately exists”, he highlights. The ambassador, who was consul in Miami, recalls that during the pandemic he saw “cases of this violence in a tragic way”. “I decided to be an activist against this phenomenon”, he highlights.
2024-04-19 23:11:20