I´ve been neglecting this space for the last several days. I´ve been in Rio since 29 Sep because of the Rio International Film Festival, which runs from 25 Sep to 9 Oct, with over 350 films and something like 20 theaters all over town participating. Heitor has been here since the beginning, and his journalism credentials get him into everything free. They have gotten me into a few things free.
The two most powerful movies I´ve seen are ``Katyn,´´ from Poland and ``Dancing with Bashir,´´from Israel. The former is about the systematic Soviet massacre of thousands of Polish army officers (prisoners) in 1941 and the attempt until fairly recently to pretend it was done by the Nazis. The latter is technically an animated film about the massacre of 2000 Palestinians in the Lebanese refugee camps in 1982. It combines elements of drama with documentary and it is all animated. I won´t try to describe it further; google it. We saw ``Katyn´´ a couple of days ago, and just this morning saw a flyer which said it has been nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film.
If a simple head count of audiences determines anything, the big winner will be Woody Allen´s ``Vicky Christina Barcelona.´´ I won´t be able to see it, as all of its showings are sold out.
Rio is a much more touristy city than São Paulo and I like it better (at least after a few days) although I have only been to the Copabanana and Ipanema beaches, the real tourist centers, once. Most of the theaters we´ve been attending are either in the downtown or in some of the more middle class neighborhoods. The plan right now is to return to São Paulo tomorrow (before the end of the festival), just as I´m beginning to understand the Rio buses and subway.
Gotta run.
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