At the Movies with Christiane Jatahy

Cabra marcado para morrer is about João Pedro Teixeira, who led the peasant protests in the Brazilian state of Paraíba. He was assassinated in 1962 by order of the landowners, whom the protests were against. After filming a protest against the peasant activist’s murder, Eduardo Coutinho decided to turn Teixeira’s life story into a movie.

In 1964, the director had Teixeira’s wife and a number of peasants play themselves for the sake of authenticity. But this year also saw a coup in Brazil, and after 35 days of filming the military dictatorship put a stop to the project. Cast and crew members were arrested and the footage confiscated. The footage already filmed up until then had already been sent to Rio de Janeiro and thus remained out of the hands of those in power.

Revolution

In 1979, Coutinho returned to the region where large parts of the film were shot. He considered completing his thirteen year old film, but went another direction in the end. The original film became the basis for a documentary in which Coutinho has all those involved tell the story of this first film and its interruption. He also filmed the reactions of Teixeira’s widow and the local people

Cabra marcado para morrer went on to become, as American media magazine Variety put it, ‘a historic document of the revolution from the losers’ perspective’. A classic that in 2015 ended fourth in the Brazilian Film Critics Association’s Top 100 of Brazilian films

Short film

In the short film Soberane (Wara, 2022), Hakan does not wish to return to Brazil, but doesn’t know how to tell Lissy that they can no longer offer her a dream life outside of Cuba.

Moderated by Brazilian documentary photographer, editor, curator and visual artist Rafael Roncato. This film evening is also part of Holland Festival's programme line Deep Dive Club.