A FILM BY GABRIEL MASCAROBrazil / 2014 / 77mins / Portuguese / Color / Hd / 5.1 / 1:1.85

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(AUGUST WINDS)

STORY LINE In a small coastal village

in Brazil, the month of

August brings high tides, strong winds and the arrival of a researcher

registering the sound of the trade winds. His arrival coincides with a

surprise discovery that takes two of the village’s young inhabitants,

Shirley and Jeison, on a journey that confronts them with the poetic

duel between life and death, loss and memory, the wind and the sea.

SYNOPSIS Shirley has left the big city to live

in a small seaside town and look

after her elderly grandmother. She drives a tractor on a local coconut

plantation, loves rock music and wants to be a tattoo artist. She feels

trapped in the tiny coastal village. She is involved with Jeison, who also

works on the coconut farm and who free dives for lobster and octopus

in his spare time. During the month of August, when tropical storms

pound the coastline, a researcher registering the sound of the trade

winds emanating from the Intertropical Convergence Zone arrives in

their village. The high tides and the growing winds mark the following

days of the village and a surprise discovery takes Shirley and Jeison

on a journey that confronts them with the duel between life and death,

loss and memory, the wind and the sea.

THE DIRECTOR Gabriel Mascaro

was born in Recife

(Brazil) in 1983, where he still resides and works. Spanning cinema and

the visual arts, his work has been shown at the Guggenheim, Barcelona

Museum of Contemporary Art, MoMA Documentary Fortnight, Athens

and the São Paulo Biennale. He has written and directed four feature

documentaries and two shorts that have screened at important film

festivals including Rotterdam (IFFR), Amsterdam (IDFA), Oberhausen,

Clermont Ferrand, Leipzig, Copenhagen (CPH:DOX), Visions du Rèel,

Buenos Aires (Bafici), Miami, Cartagena and others. His work challenges

the line between documentary and fiction and explores the negotiation of

power relationships in their most diverse forms. August Winds is his first

feature fiction.

ABOUT

FILMOGRAPHYVENTOS DE AGOSTO August Winds, 2014, Brazil, 77’, fiction, HD

DOMÉSTICA Housemaids, 2012, Brazil, 75’, documentary, HD

A ONDA TRAZ O VENTO LEVA Ebb & Flow, 2012, Brazil/Spain, 25’,

documentary, HD

AV. BRASILIA TEIMOSA Defiant Brasilia, 2010, Brazil, 85’, documentary, HD

AS AVENTURAS DE PAULO BRUSCKY The Adventures of Paulo Bruscky, 2010,

Brazil, 20’, machinima short, HD

UM LUGAR AO SOL High-Rise, 2009, Brazil, 70’, documentary, HD

KFZ-1348, 2008, Brazil, 85’, documentary, 35mm

GABRIEL MASCARO

Q - What was the trigger for this film? Where did the idea come from?

GM - A few years ago, during a journey along the coast of

Pernambuco, northeast Brazil, I came across several

abandoned mansions that had been destroyed by rising sea levels. We

started to do some research into the phenomenon and how, in less than

30 years, beachside paradises had been turned to rubble and ruin by the

sea. We discovered a cemetery that was being engulfed by the sea and

struck me as a very powerful image. With this in mind a first treatment

began to take shape.

I started to write about abandonment, memory, loss, possession, the

waves, the sun, the salt, and the brick and mortar of the ruins. I felt,

however, that my challenge was how to create images out of something

that is invisible: the driving force of the wind. This apparent impossibility

spurred my interest. I discovered the Dutch documentary filmmaker

INTERVIEW WITH

DIRECTOR, CINEMATOGRAPHER & CO-WRITER

Joris Ivens who made his first work about the wind in 1965, “Pour Le

Mistral“. In his last film, “A Tale of The Wind“, Ivens, with grey curly hair,

appears asserting that to film the impossible is the best thing in life. This

influenced me greatly and in August Winds I incorporated a character who

I play in the film, a researcher who obsessively records the sounds and

reverberations of the winds of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.

The project ended up becoming a film about what remains, what is

transitory, the languid passing of time and the cyclical nature of life. The

symbolism of the wind pervasive, propelling a narrative that is permeable

and free.

Q - What do the August winds represent in the film?

GM – In the film the August winds refers to the winds that exist

around the Intertropical Convergence Zone, more commonly

know as the trade winds. They have a strong identity and are historically

significant. They have a distinct sound that is unforgettable. For me, it

represents an inescapable and perpetual force of nature that imposes

itself on the region. I chose to focus on the month of August as here in the

Northeast of Brazil it is the month of the year that the wind is strongest,

joining forces with high tides to create the most damage of the year. As

such, turning this invisible force more palpable.

Q - How did you work with the actors?

GM – With the exception of Shirley, the lead character who

wants to be a tattoo artist, none of the actors in the film

are professionals and are all from the small village where the film was

shot. We went to the village and spread the word that we were looking for

people to act in the film. Nearly all the inhabitants turned up for the tests,

except Geová, who plays Jeison. Two days later he came to look for me,

apologizing for having missed the tests and asking if there was a part in

the film for a singer. I asked him to sing a song to the camera. As soon as

he finished I invited him to be Jeison.

In the original script there was quite a bit of dialogue written for the non-

actors and we worked with some improvisation exercises and studied the

scenes carefully.

With Dandara, who plays Shirley, it was a very different process. Initially,

Shirley ‘s character was very small and we were only going to film her

for two days. She ended up filming twenty. She spent time living in the

house where her on-screen grandmother (Maria) lived. It was then that we

understood how this character would react in the environment and could

be incorporated into the film to represent an external reality. Dandara

spent a week helping Maria go to the toilet, preparing her food, putting

her to bed, getting her blankets when she was cold, listening to her

stories. Very soon Maria was calling Dandara her granddaughter without

distinguishing between reality and fiction. When these boundaries are

broken, what is real, flourishes, and what is not, becomes real.

Q - In what conditions did you shoot?

GM – We filmed in the month of August. As such the filming was

naturally marked by the presence of the wind. We filmed with

a small team, with no rigid film schedule allowing us to shoot scenes

that emerged spontaneously, organically, integrating the day-to-day

reality of the village and its surroundings. To some degree the narrative

was invisible to us, the climatic factors, the surroundings, the wind, were

largely responsible for the encounters that we see on screen.

Q - You photographed as well as directed the film. How was that?

GM – I accumulated roles in this film: director, writer,

cinematographer, at times actor. I had a dynamic and very

personal involvement in the filming. We were a tiny, intimate crew and

everyone did a bit of everything. We were very concentrated, lodged in a

house very close to where we were shooting. We edited every day after

shooting. For three weeks we didn’t stop. The most challenging part of this

film was trying to find the right path to follow given the permeability of the

narrative and the new possibilities that opened up everyday we filmed.

Q - You come from a documentary background, although you have

often challenged the boundaries between the two genres in your

documentaries. AUGUST WINDS is your first fiction film, what defines

it as such and how does it draw on your previous experiences?

GM – I prefer not to talk about fiction and documentary as

distinct. All of my previous work as a documentary filmmaker

and as a visual artist has been contaminated by ideas and approaches

that others may consider as within the realm of fiction. Whilst I recognise

AUGUST WINDS as a fiction I also recognise the numerous moments

that the film draws on my documentary experience, on real people and

encounters. At the core of AUGUST WINDS are ideas about the wind that

transit time and space in a way that contaminates the very nature of the

film. I like to think of the wind blowing us in directions and towards ideas

and considerations that we don’t expect it to.

CAST SHIRLEY Dandara de Morais JEISON Geová Manoel dos Santos

GRANDMOTHER Maria Salvino dos Santos JEISON’S FATHER Antônio

José dos Santos WIND RESEARCHER Gabriel Mascaro

CREW DIRECTOR Gabriel Mascaro PRODUCER Rachel Ellis SCREENPLAY

Gabriel Mascaro & Rachel Ellis CINEMATOGRAPHY Gabriel Mascaro

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS Rachel Ellis & Stefania Régis EDITING Ricardo

Pretti & Eduardo Serrano PRODUCTION MANAGER Livia de Melo ART

DIRECTION Stefania Régis DIRECT SOUND Victoria Franzan SOUND

DESIGN, EDIT & MIX Mauricio d’Orey POST-PRODUCTION PRODUCER

Vanessa Barbosa SPECIAL EFFECTS Ernesto Herrmann & Cinecolor

GRAPHIC DESIGN Guilherme Luigi

www.facebook.com/ventosdeagostohttp://en.desvia.com.br/August-Winds-Ventos-de-Agosto

FURTHER INFORMATION

(AUGUST WINDS)

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