Anny Gomes

A graduate in Film Direction at Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Brazilian born Ricardo Alves Júnior's first short movie "Material Bruto" (Raw material), received over 10 awards at international festivals, and his second film, "Convite para jantar com camarada Stalin" won the award for Best Experimental Short Film at the International Short Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro; Best Short Film, Best Director and Best Photography at the 40th Film Festival of Brasilia, plus Special Mention "Film of Tomorrow" at the International Festival of Short Films, in Belo Horizonte. This May, Ricardo's 32-minute film "Permanences", was an official selection at Cannes Critic’s Week. Here is our interview with the filmmaker.

The lead part was created with Helena Albergaria in mind, she is an actress that we admired since college and we knew and respected her work at Companhia do Latão (theatre company in São Paulo). We have the same mindset for Gilda Nomacce, Lilian Blanc and Clarissa Kiste, actresses we like and became important collaborators.

Everything in the movie is real. We had no control of anything. Since we could only follow some teams from DAS, we could build a relationship with the policemen and even the family that was going through that horrible situation. This relationship helped us because we were allowed to follow the whole process of the kidnapping, in the end, after the victim returned home; the whole team was so happy and glad that we had a happy ending to share with the public.

Our search for the sublime in cinema fits naturally with the subject of faith, the invisible, and the mysterious forces at play in our fragile world. I have only glimpsed the sublime in cinema. In fact, the film I hold dearest to my heart is Pasolini's 'The Gospel According to Saint Matthew'.

Rosa is a woman who is about 58 years-old that once had a family, husband, kids and now, under some circunstance, is alone. However, sharing details of her biographical story is not the most important aspect of my short film; attempting to capture and carefully witness her daily routine would help to understand and feel what she feels.