December 5, 2022

10:12

Mencius Melo – Amazon Agency

MANAUS – Harshly attacked in the last four years of Bolsonaro Government, the Brazilian audiovisual survived Frias and Porciúnculas, men that Jair Bolsonaro climbed in culture to confront the seventh art produced in Brazil. With the return of Lula to the Central Plateau, the tupiniquim audiovisual is preparing for new times. AMAZON AGENCY interviewed filmmakers to find out what is expected from the new government for Amazonian directors, collectives, screenwriters and producers.

For filmmaker Z Leão “those were days of total neglect…”. “The weakening of public policies for the audiovisual was a classic of this government. Right from the start, it already went through a distressing contempt with the end of the Ministry of Culture, then, a Nazi cultist as head of the culture portfolio and, right after that, another brutal blow with the appointment of a second-rate actor to put the anti-culture policy into practice. And without failing to cite the pandemic as a nice excuse. The audiovisual, one can say, has been four years in need”, he criticized.

The Amazonian filmmaker hopes for a new moment for the Brazilian audiovisual. “If there is one thing that this elected government likes to promote, it is culture. With the announcement of the re-creation of the Ministry of Culture and, immediately, the release of the resources of the Paulo Gustavo and Aldir Blanc Laws that were vetoed by the current government, we can glimpse a resumption of the Brazilian audiovisual. In the last four years, there have been no federal edicts for the audiovisual sector, and this has delayed the audiovisual production processes of future filmmakers”, said Z Leão.

Dismantling

Another one who also corroborates Z Leão’s thought is filmmaker Sérgio Andrade. For the director of “Jonathas’ Forest”, “A Terra Negra dos Kawa” and “Antes o Tempo Não Acabava”, Brazil has become hostile to the audiovisual. “There was clearly a dismantling, which began with the extinction of the Audiovisual Secretariat and the Ministry of Culture, there was also an ideological dismantling and a negative stigmatization of our activity”, lamented Sérgio Andrade.

For the director, the new government has the mission of putting the audiovisual back on track. “The new government must promote the resumption of incentives and stimuli that understand the audiovisual industry as a powerful market and labor agent”, he said. For Sérgio Andrade, the political-environmental context can favor production in the Amazon Region. “I think that the environment and the climatic concepts should have a strong leverage in the coming years, but it is necessary to first reassemble what was disassembled”, he observed.

But not everything depends only on resources or financial viability. Audiovisual production also depends on other initiatives. Laws, proposals and projects must be part of the reality of those who make the gears turn. “The funding and the culture laws are fundamental, because they end up indicating continuity, and make perennial laws for such a progressive activity that, many times, is discontinued”, Sérgio Andrade pointed out.

Law

Demonized and called a “mamata”, the Rouanet Law is one of the platforms that can help rebuild the sector. But Z Leão is not optimistic. “The passing of the years has made it clear that the Rouanet Law will not give much importance to the audiovisual sector in the Amazon. Roraima, Rondônia, Acre, Amapá, Amazonas can forget about the benefits of this law. Pará still manages to get some projects financed by it. The companies that could help us, by means of this law, have already made it clear that they prefer to invest in artists from the great cultural centres of Brazil”, he sentenced.

Sérgio Andrade sees it differently. “The Rouanet Law is a law to benefit sponsors and companies and has very interesting devices, however, it needs to be reformulated and inserted in the population. People make a lot of confusion and feed on misinformation. Did you know that the Rouanet Law is not aimed at the audiovisual sector? Only for a small portion of it. For the audiovisual, we have other laws and funds that equally need to be preserved and implemented”, he concluded.