1978. While the military coup that assaulted Brazil in 1964 starts to teeter, we follow a romance involving an 18 years old soldier and the cultural ringleader of an anarchist cabaret. Tattoo depicts the conflicts and reflections of a whole generation observed from a marginal perspective. Through the vantage point of the exception, the film elucidates the norm.
Brazil, 1978. The military dictatorship that resulted from a coup in 1964 begins
to stumble. In a cabaret-like theater located on the periphery between two cities
in the northeast of Brazil a group of artists challenges power and conventional
morality with theater plays and public interferences. Led by Clécio Wanderley,
the troupe Chão de Estrelas, strongly supported by it’s homosexual audience,
along with intellectuals and other artists, practices political resistance through
anarchy and mockery.
Wanderley’s life changes when he meets Fininha, née Arlindo Araújo, an 18 yearold
boy from the country fulfilling his military service in the big city. This encounter
represents a bold metamorphosis for both of their universes, a rendezvous that
sticks as permanently as a tattoo, a sign carried forever in one’s soul.
Irandhir Santos
as Clécio
Jesuíta Barbosa
as Fininha
Rodrigo García
as Paulete
Sílvio Restiffe
as Professor Joubert
Sylvia Prado
as Deusa
Ariclenes Barroso
as Soldado Gusmão
STAR SPANGLED FLOOR
Nash Laila
Arthur Canavarro
Clébia Souza
Erivaldo Oliveira
Mariah Texeira
Diego Salvador
Everton Gomes
Rafael Guedes
Jennyfer Caldas
Iara Campos
Director, Screenwriter: Hilton Lacerda
Producer: João Vieira Jr., Chico Ribeiro e Ofir Figueiredo
Executive Producer: Nara Aragão
Production Manager: Dedete Parente
Cinematographer: Ivo Lopes Araújo
Editor: Mair Tavares
Production Designer: Renata Pinheiro
Second Unit Director: Marcelo Caetano
Costume Designer: Chris Garrido
Make Up Artist: Donna Meirelles
Sound Recording: Danilo Carvalho
Sound Editing: Waldir Xavier
Sound Re-cording Mixer: Ricardo Cutz
Soundtrack: DJ Dolores
Associate Producer: Malu Viana Batista
Born in Recife, on the northeastern coast of Brazil, Hilton Lacerda is better known as the screenwriter of such films as Mango Yellow (2002, by Cláudio Assis), FilmPhobia (2008, by Kiko Goifman), The Dead Girl’s Fea st (2008, by Matheus Nachtergaele), Rat Fever (2011, by Cláudio Assis), Arido Movie (2006, by Lirio Ferreira), among others, all of which premiered in respected international –Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, Locarno, Havana, Bafici – and local – São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and Gramado – film festivals. Lacerda also co-directed with Ferreira the documentary Cartola: Music for the eyes (2007). Tattoo is his first feature film as director.
Photo by: Fábio Nascimento to Magazine Aurora / Diário de Pernambuco
“My story with Tattoo is old. I know Hilton since the 1980s, in college. We watched the development of our careers in film with admiration for each other’s work. In 2006 we worked together in the feature film Bog of Beasts, directed by Cláudio Assis. I was the producer and he was the screenwriter. I knew that Hilton directed, I remembered his previous short films and started to insist: ‘Why don’t you direct a feature film?’. He thought about the possibility and said that he was working on a story that was very moving for him. So in 2008 he presented the first treatment of Tattoo’s screenplay. In the following year, REC prepared the project and started to work on the movie. It was very important to have this work done. It represents the consolidation of a diversified catalog. Tattoo is the eighth feature film from our producer. We are very proud to contribute to the expression and reflection of these artists. And if we, the producers, on the one hand have to consider the value and the artistic path of the work, on the other we need to think about its viability. And the construction of Tattoo has a strategy that involves the fundraising through Funcultura, which gave us support to present the project to others script funds. I highlight the importance of two: Petrobras, through Petrobras Cultural 2010/2011, and Eletrobras / Chesf. Reminding that the beginning of it all still has the support of the Hubert Bals Fund, which award for screenplay development was our first achievement. Also we had to rely on a variety of institutional support in order to provide the creative freedom that Hilton and his crew needed.”
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http://www.recprodutores.com.brStill: Flávio Gusmão
How the history of Vivencial Diversiones, anarcho/theatrical group influenced the creation of the Star spangled floor?
The Vivencial Diversiones was a small and peripheral playhouse between the cities of Recife and Olinda, that had its peak in the mid-70s. It is a reference to my point of view of the world from the periphery of the facts . And then there were all the elements that interested me: a bit of anarchy, leadership conflicts, struggle for freedom. And mainly a very passionate reflection about art and behavior. A very narrow conversation between possible luxury and palpable poverty. And eveything wasn’t that much developed, with a very brave ingenuity.
My relationship with the Vivencial wasn’t direct. And it was more emotional than practical. I used to know - and stil do - several people who made part of that universe. When the time to join it arrived to me, the world had spun once more - in the early 80s. The myths, the legends, the history remained. And above all, the feeling that from peripheral attitudes we can reach the nucleus of the events and influence the world around us.
João Silverio Trevisan was a very important character in this process. He had, from his "Devassos no Paraíso", called attention to the possibilities of interpretations of that space – at the release of the first edition of the book in 1983, I believe . After many years, we ended up being neighbors in the city of São Paulo. During a conversation in my house, he asked me: why not to make a movie about the Vivencial? I was already working on another script from another perspective. At that moment I began to mature the environment of the story that I was working on and its relationships with subjects that interest me and could bring new looks.
The Star Spangled Floor, space recreated for Tattoo, is the freedom to reinvent that moment; not reporting strictly to the past or inspiring itself directly into their characters. We were interested - and that was what we have done - in borrowing the spirit, the atmosphere, of a time and throw it to another time. Recreating a movement behind the memories. In some way, to model a moment for thinking about the present and its possibilities.
At Star Spangled Floor’s core we have the impression that the scenes are happening and the camera is just stealing those moments. How was the process of building the theater’s scenes?
We did a very intense and long preparation (six weeks) with Amanda Gabriel in charge of it. It was part of that context to locate the characters in the cast that we have selected. This same cast had the task of assembling the dramas described in the script.
The texts were divided between the spectacle they were presenting and the preparation of a new show. The first one with sketches and the second one with more theatrical intentions. And since that time we were working with a very clear concept for the camera to understand the scenarios movements and to adapt them to the Star Spangled Floor space.
One thing that had to become clear for the cast was that we had two levels of interpretation that we wanted to reach: the excess of theatrical productions and an interpretation more colloquial. Between those interpretation, the invasion of one by another. In other words: a fusion that escapes from the everyday stage, as well as its inverse.
The cinematography has a well-defined concept. Just like the art design. They play a narrative role, but seem to favor the transmission of a mood, sensory experiences. How did you come to the aesthetic concepts we see in the film?
At Tattoo, and it comes from its gestation, the quest is to reveal an environment, but that environment was not stigmatized in its time. We did not want to be enslaved to a time. The general concept was the need to show things breathing attitude, revealing an intention. And to give us a notion quite tactile from that universe.
Renata Pinheiro (production designer) and Ivo Lopes Araújo (cinematographer) were far beyond the original intent. With Renata I already have a working complicity because we worked together in five films. I believe that when you create an environment, things happen there. The Tattoo environment is one of the main characters. This was my first work with Ivo, but one of the best matches in terms of look. He’s accurated without being retrograde. His look has freedom and sophistication at the same time.
"Tattoo" tells a love story between two men. The movie does not seem to intend to raise flags. If it does, it’s because of the truth which it looks the desire and its expression. At some point, during the creative process, you took into account the potential social work of the film in breaking down stigma and prejudice?
From my point of view, a love story between two men has nothing scandalous or abnormal. In the case of Tattoo, the fact brings an essential element for the development of the narrative, and is quite informative about the time. It scores as a contemporary reflection on stigmas and prejudices that emerge over and over again, as old ghosts. And within this perspective, the loving relationship is a trigger for debate, yes. For the prejudice, the film can only be provocative. But the greatest provocation of our discourse is the construction of freedom.
What was the biggest challenge in directing the first fiction feature-film?
The biggest challenge in Tattoo, after having written several screenplays, directed many short films and documentaries for TV, was the possibility to pursue aesthetic ideas and narratives for a project which I am, at the same time, responsible and accomplice. Having the chance to deal with creative solutions that would realize my anxieties. The challenge of establishing a specific look and rehearse a mode of production that breathed that idea.
How much of yourself is present in the film?
I make jokes about that. I say I spent 48 years writing Tattoo. I was 13 in 1978 - the year the film is set - just Tuca’s age, son of Clécio. Time that I began to live more actively, with a little more awareness. And I saw a lot of those peripherals art groups throughout my adolescence. I do not see myself in one character only, but in the logic of an artistic look that refines what is going on in the periphery. And it goes through various characters: a desire to create not only because we believe in art, but because we need it. And we do it in a big way. So we no longer need to handle an absolute truth, but a look, a narrative.
In real life situations Clécio is quite performative and on stage he is very real. How was conceived the creation of several tones in the same character?
Hilton did very well in the casting choice: selected people willing to go through a process of coexistence. And the production did it right putting everyone really close, facilitating the daily contact. These two facts made germinate the affection of people who know each other for a long time in just two months. This group represents several things for Clécio: family, lovers, work. He lives a conflict of assorted roles in there. The work was to identify the moment of each one of these roles in relation to the other characters. Therefore, in the process, we discovered a range of facets.
What are the challenges of doing theater for the movies?
When I received the invitation for Tattoo the thing that struck me most, besides the opportunity to work with Hilton, was the possibility to satisfy my desire to do theater. I’ve been off stage for seven years. In fact, because of that, I often had to control this desire to be on stage and find the measure of theatre in the films. It was easier in rehearsals, we had more freedom. And at the movie set there was the machine, the camera, but there was also an audience, people who were watching the scenes for the first time. When I’m acting in a movie I feel on a fight: I try to win the machine to reach the audience, the spectators. In Star Spangled Floor it was funny, it was as if the audience had two dimensions: one that lies beyond the camera and other, present in the filming set.
It’s the third time you play a character written by Hilton Lacerda, but only this time you were directed by him. How was this partnership?
I have an immediate identification with everything Hilton does. I feel present and represented in his works. Perhaps due to the hint of personal experiences that he gives which somehow identify with my own experiences. Because of the other works, in Tattoo we were together since the beginning, there was already a surety, a more direct comeback. Hilton is very sensitive, caring and generous. In addition, he has a great significance on my trajectory. When I saw Texas Hotel, a short film directed by Cláudio Assis with screenplay by Hilton, it was the first time I saw arise my accent in the movie and I was excited about the possibility of film in Recife. Four years later, my first character really outlined in the movies, had been written by Hilton (Maninho, in Bog of Beasts). And my first lead in the movies also came from one of his scripts (Zizo, Rat Fever, directed by Cláudio Assis). My approach to the films was punctuated by Hilton. Assis). Minha aproximação do cinema foi pontuada por Hilton.
Fininha (Arlindo) plays, at the same time, on the side of repression and counterculture. How the internal contradictions were treated in order to reach the consistency we see on screen?
It is a period of psychological conflicts when one begins to realize oneself in adulthood. Arlindo is a man under development, but already with very mature character. I embodied a guy willing to see the world, in the many senses of the word (not unlike me). Passion moves Fininha’s heart, but he knows how to do the hardest: to use the head, to have common sense. Some people told me that he is underhanded. I never understood that word.
How the intimacy we notice among actors, characters and camera was built?
There were periodic rehearsals in which we celebrated the construction of the scenes, without any strings to the text. I had a lot of freedom to create dialogues, to suggest perspectives. Amanda Gabriel’s encouragement was indispensable. We live in Olinda, which became a place of coexistence. To go up and down the slopes, to eat tapioca, to make a visit - we live the history every day. This history became real while it was experienced.
Working with a director who is also the writer makes any difference in the elaboration of the scenes?
I met a thinker who worked full time in the construction of everything in the movie. Hilton is the movie. When he gives tips for the text, for the movement, or when he just lets it happen. It’s good to hear from him the situation of each scene before start shooting, or listen to a song close to the ear, softly sung by him (it was when everything made sense).
“For the choices of photography, we thought it would be interesting if the cast was as free as possible. This idea came from inside the work itself. The freedom is current in the theme, in the period, in the concerns of the characters and in the relationships between them. I think this craving for freedom took over the entire crew, who was fully engaged with the creation of the film. The organic behavior of the camera with the actors and with the spaces and objects carefully elaborated by the art direction, are due to the many conversations and meetings we had in the valuable preproduction moment and to the real desire of exchange between team members. The movie was arranged by Hilton and João Jr in a way so that everything would fit and everyone could lend their talent for building a truthful and strong work. I feel entirely part of that troupe of actors and cry with them for freedom, for love and for all the contradictions that come along. Tattoo is not just a movie. It was a rite of passage, an intense collective experience, enjoyable and very exciting.”
“The story is contextualized in a Brazil which is going through dictatorship, a moralist and strict country. To narrate this moment from the perspective of subversive artists was the key to find the world that we would create. The Star Spangled Floor was something alive, colorful and cozy. A core that radiated energy of freedom, of willingness to change. I chose to build the theater in the ruins of the Nascedouro de Peixinhos (old slaughterhouse), because there the colors of this core would become stronger, in contrast with the destructions (which to me symbolized the system). During the production process there was no strictness in recreate a period, but a need to transport the actors and the audience to a state of emotion. When we entered the Star Spangled Floor, we were not walking into a museum, into a dead file. It was more like a possible place and quite unsuitable for nowadays. I never got to have a careful watch with anything we used, it was necessary to transmit a state of mind, something bigger, more sensory. It was a very pleasant work: flesh, cry, skin, buttocks, smell of coffee, mold, sun and sweat.”
“The structure of the film needed to bear complex characters. In addition to the stories and narratives of each one, there was something bigger, the state of mind of those characters that would compose the atmosphere of the film. In this construction process, it was important to identify how each element of the film could collaborate to build this state of mind, from the photography filmed in more than one format, passing through art direction to the cast itself. “
Graduated from the acting school SESC of Recife and the University of Liverpool in England, Rodrigo García is developing his career in the movies. Besides Tattoo, he acted in three other feature films, two of them still in the finishing process, and some short films.
“In Tattoo we had a combination of factors that facilitated the process in which, not only the cast, but also the crew was able to dive into a world that does not exist out there. For the first time I was sure that was what I was looking for as an actor. The certainty of having created something so safe, so strong, like a new life that touched me very much.”
Silvio Restiffe has played characters of Nelson Rodrigues, Tchekhov, Tenesse Williams and Lourenço Mutarelli on stage. He began his artistic career in the theater, but soon leaned to the audio-visual. He participated in four feature films, plus many other short films and some television work.
“Tattoo really made me think about my ‘whys’ and my ‘origins’ in art making. Joubert, in spite of being openly inspired in Jomard Muniz de Britto, often came to me the as a philosophy teacher I had in high school, and my first theatrical experience, as a virgin amateur strength: a power that breaks the Vivencial Diversiones, beautifully represented at the Star Spangled Floor.”
Sylvia Prado thought about being a journalist, but decided to become an actress. Instead of USP, she got in the Indac, acting school in São Paulo. After watch the rehearsals of Cacilda!, by Teatro Oficina, she decided to be part of the troupe. Since then she is a member of the group of José Celso Martinez Correa and has performed texts such as Boca de Ouro, by Nelson Rodrigues, O idiota, by Dostoiévski, e Os sertões, by Euclides da Cunha.
“Deusa was built from my beliefs in life. The soul came before the shape: something between me and her, between my strength in life and hers, between my disbeliefs and hers. Things were taking shape within a great amateurism, I say amateurism in the loving sense of the word, in the surrender to this mysterious art, Cinema, which requires the actor full awareness, almost timed, of their states.”
At the age of nine, Ariclenes Barroso was already part of the cast of Teatro Oficina, where he participated in the staging of texts like Os sertões, Taniko, As bacantes, O banquete, Vento forte para papagaio subir and Os bandidos. Besides other experiences on stage, his resume includes participation in feature films such as Luz nas Trevas, directed by Helena Ignez and Ícaro C. Martins, and Aspirantes, by Ives Rosenfeld.
“A few years before start shooting, Hilton had already told me about the movie. When I got the script and met Soldier Gusmão I bonded really well with him. Hilton’s characters speak for themselves in the work.”
REC Produtores Associados is best known as the production bureau of such films as Cinema, Aspirin and Vultures (by Marcelo Gomes, France’s Ministry of Education Award in Cannes Film Festival, along with more than 50 awards around the world), KFZ – 1348 (by Gabriel Mascaro and Marcelo Pedroso), I Travel Because I Have to, I Come Back Because I Love You (premiered at the 2010 Venice Film Festival), and Once Upon a Time was I, Veronica (2012 Toronto Film Festival). REC Produtores Associados has also co-produced Good Luck, Sweetheart (by Daniel Aragão, 2012 Toronto Film Festival) and Bog of Beasts (by Cláudio Assis, Tiger Awards in 2007 Rotterdam Film Festival). REC is currently involved in postproduction of O Homem das Multidões (by Cao Guimarães and Marcelo Gomes).
Film Distributor settled in Brazil for 24 years, Imovision is establishing as one of the majors encouragers of the greatest films. The company works with national and international independent productions, praised in Brazil and abroad. The movies of Imovision are widely recognized in the market by the public and critics, receiving awards in the most prestigious film festivals: Venice, Cannes, Berlin, Moscow, San Sebastian, New York Critics Circle, Toronto etc.
