The festival’s curatorial team selected 49 works to compete for the Cine Esquema Novo Grand Prize
The festival is held with resources from Complementary Law No. 195/2022, Paulo Gustavo Law, and presented by the Ministry of Culture. Funding from Iecine, Pro-Cultura, and the Culture Department of the State of Rio Grande do Sul.
The event will take place from February 14-23, with free admission
Porto Alegre, January 10, 2025 – The 15th Cine Esquema Novo – Brazilian Audiovisual Art announced the selected works for the Brazil Competitive Exhibition that takes place from February 14-23 in various venues in Porto Alegre with free admission. A total of 49 works were selected for the main exhibition out of 675 applicants. The curatorial team formed by Dirnei Prates, Kamyla Belli, Jaqueline Beltrame, and Ramiro Azevedo assessed and selected more than 282 hours of material. For over two decades and fifteen editions, the festival has broken down the symbolic and experiential barriers between cinema and visual arts to exhibit works in movie theaters, museums, galleries, and public spaces. This year’s Competitive Exhibition show works in movie theaters and exhibition rooms.
Following the success of 2021, the festival keeps its Artist’s Notebook proposal for the Brazil Competitive Exhibition. Several content pieces will be created with the participants and available in a digital environment for each artist. “The Artist’s Notebook is a place that brings together artistic references, interviews, information, images, playlists, and invites the public to have a greater understanding of each artist’s universe,” say Jaqueline Beltrame and Ramiro Azevedo, organizers of CEN, which celebrates 22 years in 2025.
The program has 16 projects by duos or groups, 24 female directors, 33 male directors, and trans and non-binary artists. Themes such as memory and history, queer identity, exploration of nature, territoriality, family ties, trans protagonism, empowerment of Black people, political and territorial occupations, new memories of the Indigenous and Black presence in the Brazilian imaginary, human rights, mental health, among others, guide the titles selected from 17 Brazilian states, and eight productions created by Brazilians living abroad (or in international co-production).
CEN’s program will take place at Cinemateca Capitólio, Goethe Institut Porto Alegre, Cinemateca Paulo Amorim, MACRS – Galeria Sotero Cosme, Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, and Casa Baka.
The festival presents five new works and a national premiere
The Brazil Competitive Exhibition brings five world premieres in its program, in addition to a national premiere: Afluente (Frederico Benevides), Buraco Negro (Rafael Spínola), Ensaios para o Fim (André Severo), O Lugar por Onde a Água Corre (Camila Leichter; co-author Mauro Espíndola), and Joie Musculaire by Jonathan de Andrade, who also shows Columbófilos, a national premiere.
Black Hole, by Rafael Spinola, marks its debut on the festival circuit in the CEN program. Frederico Benevides, who in 2021 participated with Performatividades do Segundo Plano (Frederico Benevides and Yuri Firmeza) and in 2018 with 26 Postais Contam a História de uma Amizade de 30 anos, shows the premiere of Afluente. This investigation draws from two collections: one comprising 16,000 photographs captured by the São Francisco Hydroelectric Company during the construction of the initial hydroelectric dams from the 1940s to the 1960s, and the other belonging to producer Isaac Rozemeberg, who recorded the São Francisco River between 1940-1980. Afluente aims to discuss the transformation of the river, a complex entity with thousands of layers, from a perspective that prioritizes its understanding as a source of resources, particularly electricity.
Jonathas de Andrade, who occupied the Brazilian Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale and was part of the CEN program with The Fish in 2018, presents the premiere of La Joie Musculaire. Columbófilos was included in the exhibition Sobrevoo, which was the culmination of an artistic residency in Porto (Portugal) in 2023. In addition, it was exhibited at the Vila do Conde International Film Festival in Portugal.
Ensaios para o Fim is an unprecedented video installation by artist Andre Severo, which brings together television monitors of different sizes, models, and formats with short looped passages of scenes of atomic bomb explosions in the Second World War or in tests during the Cold War. For the screening at Cine Esquema Novo, the installation was adapted for movie theaters, featuring a 60-minute film collage that will be projected on the large screen, creating an atmosphere of contrast between chaos and beauty, in addition to the televisions placed in the room.
Camila Leichter and Marcela Ilha Bordin, who were the winners of the 2018 Cine Esquema Novo Grand Prize with The House and Dead Princess of Jacuí, have returned to the festival with two new films: O Lugar por Onde a Água Corre (Camila Leichter; co-authored by Mauro Espíndola) and Sertão, América (Marcela Ilha Bordin). O Lugar por Onde a Áqua Corre is an experimental film shot during the 2024 floods in Rio Grande do Sul, which brings together collaborative research, archival production, and audiovisual essays about Arroio Serraria, presenting a poetic trajectory of a body of water, its banks, beings, materialities, phenomena, and imaginaries. “The 2024 flood transformed the film process. Our contact with the stream affected us greatly, but this year was extreme. We have had a flood file since 2014, but things have changed since 2023,” say the directors. Sertão, América is a record in the sertão region of Piauí, where cave drawings challenge the current theory of American peopling.
The list also includes O Milagre de Helvetia and Roma Talismano, by Guerreiro do Divino Amor, who participated in the last Venice Biennale, was awarded the 2019 Pipa Prize and is participating in the festival for the fourth time. In 2019 he presented Supercomplexo Metropolitano Expandido and A Cristalização de Brasília; in 2021, O Mundo Mineral. In the sixth chapter of his SuperFictional World Atlas, O Milagre de Helvetia explores Switzerland as an allegorical construct of beauty, wealth, and perfection. This chapter was exhibited at the 2024 Venice Biennale and the Geneva Center for Contemporary Art. Roma Talismano, the seventh chapter of the World Superfictional Atlas, explores the city of Rome as a moral and aesthetic talisman of the West. The work was produced as an installation for the Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and a film version was created for the Bangkok Biennale.
Dona Beatriz Ñsîmba Vita, by Catapreta, is loosely inspired by the story of Congolese heroine Kimpa Vita. The film has been shown at 30 national and international festivals, including the Sundance 2024 Festival, the 60th Chicago International Film Festival, and the 25th Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), where it was awarded Best Latin American Short Film. In addition, the film has received awards at the 56th Brasília Festival of Brazilian Cinema, the III AFRONTE – Festival of Sexual, Racial and Gender Diversity Cinema, the 31st Vitória Film Festival, the 14th Animage International Film Festival, the 34th Cine Ceará, and the 26th FestCurtasBH. The director has previously engaged in the CEN 2008 edition with O Céu no Andar de Baixo.
Victor Di Marco and Marcio Picoli participated in the 2021 edition with O que Pode um Corpo?, in the Outros Esquemas Exhibition. In 2025, the duo presents Zagêro, a short film investigating the limits of sublime, humor, and exaggeration to approach disability and rights. Mixing music, poetry, and dance, the work exalts the power and subversion of bodies with disabilities. “By exposing the invisible DEF story and prophesying that we are much more than an acronym, the project has people with disabilities in all directions,” reveal the filmmakers. Zagêro has participated in a number of festivals, including the SP International Short Film Festival (CURTA KINOFORUM), the RJ International Festival (Curta Cinema), and the Gramado Film Festival.
Animais Noturnos, by Indigo Braga and Paulo Abrao, recounts the tale of Mutante, a 100 meters tall transvestite living in Rio de Janeiro. In contrast to a kaiju, which is characterized by a pursuit of destruction and retribution, Mutante exemplifies a more harmonious relationship with her environment. The short film posits the existence of trans individuals as a magical and post-human phenomenon, situating its protagonism within the urban landscape of Rio de Janeiro, particularly in the city center. The duo asserts that the work’s objective is to encourage reflections on the experiences and representations of LGBTQIAPN bodies within the urban landscape, extending beyond the confines of their nocturnal existence.
The Brazil Competitive Exhibition features projects from artists who already took part in other festival editions. Mar de Dentro, by Lia Leticia, tells the story of Sérgio Lino dos Santos, a former inmate from Fernando de Noronha. The work traverses various colonial legacies, ranging from the Vargas and 1964 dictatorships in Brazil to the present era. It aims to establish a poetic and political record of the history of what has been obscured but persists and endures in contemporary times. Lia has previously participated in the 2021 and 2019 editions with the productions Per Capita and Thinya.
For CEN director and curator Jaqueline Beltrame, the selection presents a characteristic of the festival’s curatorial process, which is repeated throughout the editions: “We seek new works and artists while following the production of artists who have participated in CEN’s different editions,” said Beltrame. “It is very interesting for curators and the public to follow their journeys through the festival. Thus, CEN helps connect artists and audiences.”
Aquele que Viu o Abismo, by Gregorio Gananian and Negro Leo, is a science fiction noir, winner of the Best Film Award at the Olhos Livres Exhibition at the 27th Tiradentes Film Festival. As Gananian explains, the film’s genesis occurred during an artistic residency in China in 2019, when the characters and performances were first developed, followed by the creation of the script. The Last Waltz, the second short film of the Poemas Cinematográficos project by Fabio Rogerio and Jean-Claude Bernardet, is also part of the selection.
O Cavalo de Pedro, by Daniel Nolasco, is a mockumentary about the myths related to the horse that Brazil’s emperor Dom Pedro I rode on Brazil’s Independence Day in 1822. The image of this horse was immortalized in the 1888 painting Independence or Death by artist Pedro Américo. In the oil painting on canvas, Dom Pedro is on the banks of the Ipiranga, surrounded by his army, with his sword raised and declaring the independence of Brazil. In the center of the canvas, Dom Pedro is mounted on a brindle chestnut horse that was part of the royal cavalry. It is said that Dom Pedro liked the horse so much that he gave it a position as a civil servant in the Brazilian Empire. Taking Paulo Setúbal’s novel as a guide, As Maluquices do Imperador, the movie proposes a queer reading of Brazil’s independence and Dom Pedro I. This is Nolasco’s third participation in the festival, which was part of the program with Sr. Raposo (2018) and Vento Seco (2021).
Oração, by Haroldo Saboia, is a film-song: two musicians and a dancer elaborate on the relationship between Afro-Brazilian diasporic memory and popular songs, especially samba. The performance is characterized by a fragmented montage, musical improvisations, and dramatic propositions, accompanied by texts and speeches by poets such as Edimilson de Almeida Pereira, Aimé Cesáire, Lucille Clifton, Gilberto Gil, Zé Keti, and Nelson do Cavaquinho.
Para Lota, by Bruno Safadi and Ricardo Pretti, is a pandemic movie. It was filmed in 2020, at night, in a completely deserted city. The work presents a 7-kilometer traveling shot at 120 frames per second, filmed from the interior of a vehicle moving at 15 kilometers per hour. This results in a 1-hour and 25-minute shot from one end of Flamengo Park to the other. Flamengo Park, the second largest urban park in the world, is regarded as a jewel of Brazilian landscaping and architecture. The composition of the sound is derived from a series of fourteen letters composed by Lota de Macedo Soares, addressed to the then-mayor of Rio de Janeiro, the prominent politician Carlos Lacerda. Safadi and Pretti met at Cine Esquema Novo in 2008.
Urban Solutions, a co-production between Brazil and Germany by Pátio Vazio and Cine Copains, was filmed entirely in the city of Porto Alegre in 16mm color and finished at LaborBerlin. The film was selected for the international competition at the Rotterdam Festival and premiered at Cinéma du Réel, where it was awarded the Best Short Film in the International Competition. This distinction was granted under the direction of Arne Hector, Luciana Mazeto, Minze Tummescheit, and Vinicius Lopes. The cast includes Ivo Alexandre Junior, Sandra Dani, Heinz Limaverde, Ivo Medeiros, Alvaro RosaCosta, Leo Maciel, Martin Clausen, and Zé de Paiva. A doorman observes the images from security cameras in a residential building while reflecting on his profession and relationship with his employers.
The Brazil Competitive Exhibition will award the following prizes at the end of the event: the 15th Cine Esquema Novo Grand Prize and 5 Special Jury Prizes, with a trophy created by Luiz Roque, especially for the festival, in addition to service prizes that will be announced soon. The Official Jury – to be announced – will be able to award up to 5 prizes, freely, among all the works in the competition as well as four other exhibitions, one of them with works by Roque, this edition’s distinguished artist, and the rest of the program, which includes debates in partnership with the Association of Cinema Critics of RS, the seminar “Pensar a Imagem” and workshops.
The 15th edition’s visual identity features work by artist Pamela Zorn
During several editions of CEN, visual artists were invited to create the festival’s visual identity. This year, Pamela Zorn is responsible for the 15th edition’s visuals. Pamela is a visual artist and art educator. Bachelor of Visual Arts (UFRGS), she is currently developing her masters in Arts at the same university. She has experience with mediation in museums and teaches independent art workshops. In 2022, she won the Aliança Francesa Prize for Contemporary Art and the Artist Highlight at the XV Açorianos Prize in Visual Arts in Porto Alegre.
Her main language is painting, although she works with photography, drawing, and subjective writing in her artistic process. Her creative research investigates memory, self-representation, and racial relations, using family albums as a representational motif. Among the exhibitions she took part in, the following stand out: “DOS BRASIS, arte e pensamento negro” (collective), at SESC Belenzinho in São Paulo (2023/2024); “Sempre venho, talvez, daquele outro porto” (individual), at Centre Intermondes in La Rochelle, France (2022); “Presença Negra no MARGS” (collective), no MARGS (2022); “Pintura e Desenho: A Novíssima Geração V” (collective), at Museu do Trabalho (2022) and “Entre Lugares” (individual), curated by Daniele Barbosa at Fundação Força e Luz (2021).
In 2024, she painted one of the murals of Olhe Pra Cima, a public art festival in Porto Alegre.
New Talent selection with applications open until January 10
Registrations for selecting the new talent training program of the 15th Cine Esquema Novo – Brazilian Audiovisual Art are open until January 10. The initiative reexamines a spontaneous action executed during the 14th festival, presenting a more comprehensive and methodically structured approach. The New Talent Training Program entails the recruitment of trainees to participate in the festival’s production, program, and communication teams. The program aims to furnish apprentices with opportunities to enter the job market within the audiovisual and cultural sectors. The selection process prioritizes hiring individuals identifying as PwD, transsexual, Black, Romani, quilombola, Indigenous, and woman.
Registration is facilitated through an online, which is designed to be user-friendly and accessible to individuals without prior experience in the field. Submitting a CV is not required as part of the registration process. It requires only a letter of introduction and interest. “We know that there are many barriers to entering the market. This action seeks to serve as a gateway for people whose access to opportunities is even more restricted. From this participation, it is possible to start a curriculum in the cultural field,” reveal the event organizers, Jacqueline Beltrame and Ramiro Azevedo.
The work will be paid and will last one month between January and February 2025. The activities will be hybrid: remotely during the pre-production period and on-site during the event (February 14-23) in the historic center of Porto Alegre. The managers of each team are responsible for the guidance and supervision of each participant. Registration is open until January 10.
Luiz Roque is the guest artist
Artist born in Cachoeira do Sul (RS) and living in São Paulo, Luiz Roque is one of the five artists who represented Brazil in the main exhibition of the 2022 Venice Art Biennale. “Attracted by the power of image and, in particular, by sensations that stem from the sense of vision, Luiz Roque’s work crosses different territories, such as the genre of science fiction, the legacy of Modernism, pop-culture and queer bio-politics, in order to understand the propose ingenious and visually sensual narratives. The plasticity of the allegories he uses in his films takes us through the current conflict between technological advancement and contemporary micro and macro power relations. Roque’s works inhabit a space between cinema, art and critical theory, all within the scope of a political dispute that is both real and imaginary. Furthermore, his works comment on the dissociative conditions of being between the latency of life and respective bureaucratic definitions. In this sense, his works combine the splendor of science fiction—as a device for disseminating hypotheses—with resources from the language of cinema to present us with scenarios of social tension and complex public debates.” (Originally published at Mendes Wood Gallery’s website, which represents the artist).
His recent solo shows have been held at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2024); PROA21, Buenos Aires (2022); Visual Arts Center, Austin (2021); Pivô, São Paulo (2020); CAC Passarelle, Brest (2020); Screens Series, New Museum, New York (2019); Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói (MAC), Niterói (2018). Additionally, Roque has taken part in group exhibitions at the 12th Gothenburg Biennale (2023), the 59th Venice Biennale (2022), the 32nd São Paulo Biennale (2016) and in institutions such as PORTIKUS, MASP, MoMa-Ps1, Warsaw Museum of Modern Art and Kunsthalle Vienna.
Established in Porto Alegre in 2003, CEN has held, in addition to competitive shows, several programs with essential productions in the history of independent cinema, video art, artist cinema, and expanded cinema, as well as workshops, debates, and seminars, fostering the formation of an audiovisual art audience, encouraging new productions, and building a reference space, enhancing exchanges between filmmakers, audiences, and institutions. “In addition to reflecting on the audiovisual production, seeking to break down aesthetic and format barriers, it is a great achievement to see CEN as an event for audience formation and development of projects and directors,” said the festival’s creators. Throughout 14 editions, there were numerous partnerships with other festivals, events, and institutions, such as San Sebastián Festival (Spain), Cine Humberto Mauro (Brazil), Goethe-Institut Porto Alegre (Brazil), Arsenal Institut (Germany), Semana dos Realizadores (Brazil), Mercosul Biennial (Brazil), Bafici (Argentina), Fuso Lisboa, and Temp d’Images (Portugal), among others.
Cine Esquema Novo is an ACENDI – Associação Cine Esquema Novo de Desenvolvimento da Imagem initiative. This project is funded by resources from Complementary Law No. 195/2022, Paulo Gustavo Law, and presented by the Ministry of Culture. Funded by Iecine, Pró-Cultura, and the Department of Culture of the State of Rio Grande do Sul, with support from Cinemateca Capitólio, Goethe Institut Porto Alegre, Cinemateca Paulo Amorim, Galeria Sotero Cosme, MACRS, Casa de Cultura Mario Quintana, and Casa Baka. For more information, please visit www.cineesquemanovo.org | www.facebook.com/cineesquemanovocen | @cine_esquema_novo
SELECTED WORKS
12 minutos de crepúsculo para orientar a navegação – Amanda Copstein
A Edição do Nordeste – Pedro Fiuza
A figura da quimera seria mais adequada – Darks Miranda e Juno B
A Mão que Toca o Braço – Calac Nogueira
A Ordem Reina – Fernanda Pessoa
A sua imagem na minha caixa de correio – Silvino Mendonça
A Última Valsa – Fábio Rogério e Jean-Claude Bernardet
Afluente – Frederico Benevides
Animais Noturnos – Indigo Braga e Paulo Abrão
Aquele que Viu o Abismo – Gregorio Gananian e Negro Leo
Buraco Negro – Rafael Spínola
Casa de Bonecas – George Pedrosa
Cassino – Gianluca Cozza
Columbófilos – Jonathas de Andrade
Dona Beatriz Ñsîmba Vita – Catapreta
E nada mais disse – Julia Menna Barreto
Ensaios para o Fim – André Severo
Enxofre – Karen Akerman e Miguel Seabra Lopes
Fluxo – O filme – Filipe Barbosa
Fuga – Viníciux da Silva e Raphael Medeiros
Kebranto – Jonas Van & Juno B
La Joie Musculaire – Jonathas de Andrade
Mar de Dentro – Lia Letícia
Nau – Renata de Lélis
O Cavalo de Pedro – Daniel Nolasco
O lugar por onde a água corre – Camila Leichter, coautor Mauro Espíndola
O Milagre de Helvetia – Guerreiro do Divino Amor
O Silêncio Elementar – Mariana de Melo
O Sonho de Anu – Vanessa Maria (Kypá)
O Tubérculo – Lucas Camargo de Barros e Nicolas Thomé Zetune
Ode – Diego Lisboa
Oração – Haroldo Saboia
Palimpsesto – André Di Franco e Felipe Canêdo
Para Lota – Bruno Safadi e Ricardo Pretti
Pássaro Memória – Leonardo Martinelli
Quebrante – Janaina Wagner
Roberto Baggio – Henrique Cartaxo
Roma Talismano – Guerreiro do Divino Amor
Sem Título # 9 : Nem Todas as Flores da Falta – Carlos Adriano
Sertão, América – Marcela Ilha Bordin
Sinfonia do Fim do Mundo – Isabella Raposo e Thiago Brito
Sunset Fever – Randolpho Lamonier e Victor Galvão
Terracoro – Daniel Fagus Kairoz
Tudo Que Vi Era o Sol – Leonardo Amaral, Pedro Maia de Brito e Ralph Antunes
Tupananchiskama – Rafael de Almeida
Uma noite perigosa na ilha de Vulcano – Darks Miranda
Urban Solutions – Arne Hector, Luciana Mazeto, Minze Tummescheit e Vinícius Lopes
Virtual Genesis – Arthur B. Senra
Zagêro – Victor Di Marco e Márcio Picoli