About Casa de Cinema

"For some time now, the producers of the new generation of filmmakers from Rio Grande do Sul had wanted to have what is now called Casa de Cinema (The House of Films), which is being inaugurated this Tuesday. Their aim is not to turn the small film production companies into one big company (...), but rather to create a space where they can realize the production of their films, a place for exchange of information and a distribution center for their films. Each company will develop its own projects at the Casa de Cinema, but the intention is to promote common projects still as yet to be defined."
(Roberto Antunes Fleck, ZERO HORA, Porto Alegre, 22/Dec/1987)
 
"Praised, but unable to market the production accumulated in the last seven years, winners of 48 awards for short and feature films in Brazil and abroad, thirteen young filmmakers from the South of Brazil have recently founded the Casa de Cinema, in Porto Alegre. The aim of this space is to make possible the marketing of their films and to enable the joint undertaking of new projects."
(ISTO É WEEKLY, S. Paulo, 03/Feb/1988)
 
"If in order for the process of creation to take place one needs, as Camões used to say, ingenuity and art, the Casa de Cinema has both of those qualities: it is ‘The House of Ingenuity and Art’."
(Maria do Rosário Caetano, JORNAL DE BRASÍLIA, Brasília, 23/Sep/1989)
 
"As soon as you enter the house, you perceive that this place is all about film. On the walls, on the posters and photos, your suspicion is confirmed: it is a film house. The countless awards they have won remind you that art survives any apocalypse."
(Lúcia Fontanive, VEJA RS, Porto Alegre, 04/Apr/1990)
 
"If you think it is impossible to make movies in Brazil, you don’t know the work of the Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre. Founded by filmmakers from Rio Grande do Sul in 1987, the company consolidated a production center in the state, responsible for many of the good short films produced in Brazil in the past five years."
(Alexandre Figueirôa, JORNAL DO COMÉRCIO, Recife, 12/Nov/1993)
 
"The birth place of the feature films VERDES ANOS (GREEN YEARS), ME BEIJA (KISS ME) and FELICIDADE É (HAPPINESS IS), and of the shorts ILHA DAS FLORES (ISLAND OF FLOWERS), DEUS EX-MACHINA and O DIA EM QUE DORIVAL ENCAROU A GUARDA (THE DAY DORIVAL FACED THE GUARD), it is now a long time since the Casa de Cinema was just a project of some kids just out of college. Located since 1992 in the Rio Branco neighbourhood, between Bom Fim and Moinhos de Vento, the Casa de Cinema is no longer an Association with 13 members, it has become an enterprise. The friends Carlos Gerbase, Jorge Furtado, Giba Assis Brasil, Luciana Tomasi, Nora Goulart and Ana Azevedo are now heading the production house."
(JÁ BOM FIM N° 126, Porto Alegre, 20/Oct/1997)
 
"What audiences will see at the retrospective of the Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre is, unquestionably, some of the best work produced by the Brazilian film industry in the past few years. (...) And with thematic diversity, within the political unity that characterizes the production of Casa de Cinema."
(Luiz Zanin Oricchio, O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO, S. Paulo, 21/Nov/1997)
 
"Award winning shorts like Barbosa, Ilha das Flores (Island of Flowers) and Deus ex-Machina, the medium length film Ventre Livre (Liberation), by Ana Luiza Azevedo, and the feature Verdes Anos (Green Years) carry the mark of the Casa de Cinema, as do all the TV episodes, series and journalistic programs, courses on screenwriting and introduction to filmmaking, debates and projects on the Internet produced by the company. This month, Globo TV showed the mini series Luna Caliente (Hot Moon), a recent production. The doors of the Casa de Cinema are kept closed for work in advertising. But that has not prevented the team from making the television programs of four electoral campaigns of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers’ Party), three of them victorious."
(Carlos Alberto de Mattos, O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO, S. Paulo, 22/Dec/1999)
 
"The crucial idea present throughout the existence of Casa de Cinema is that Rio Grande do Sul was, and ought to be, a film production centre for the whole of Brazil. (...) What does that have to do with television? Everything, if you consider the fact that the members of the Casa de Cinema believe that television should be a powerful ally in the struggle to conquer an honest labour market in the audiovisual field. (...) CONTOS DE INVERNO (WINTER TALES) is already a winning project. And this victory must be credited to all the people who have fought for the artists of Rio Grande do Sul to be looked upon in a new light. They have always been present and have always showed what the potential of their talents. They only needed someone to help them realize that potential. And Casa de Cinema, along with the invaluable help of Alice Urbim, Gilberto Perin and Raul Costa Jr. showed that it is possible. Now we only have to look forward to the miniseries, specials and soaps."
(Zeca Kiechaloski, ABC DOMINGO, Novo Hamburgo, 14/Jul/2002)
 
"For Giba, the great differential of Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre are two attitudes: respecting the audience’s intelligence and being faithful to their own imagination. "In other words: we do not make ‘what audiences want’, but neither do we make ‘whatever pops up in our heads’”, he explains. “This may be a quality or a defect, depending on your point of view, but it is most probably a differential. I think that generally we try to have fun with our work, which, in a way, is reflected on the finished films”, he adds.”
(Christian Caselli, TRIBUNA DA IMPRENSA, Rio de Janeiro, 18/Jun/2003)
 
"As well as films, Casa de Cinema also produces programs for television and electoral programs for left wing parties. But, differently from most large producers in the country, it does not make commercials. (…) The relationship with Globo Television started in the early nineties. (…) Now, a contract has sealed the partnership with Globo TV. Casa de Cinema will produce, this year, a program mixing fiction and documentary, called CENA ABERTA [Open Scene] (…). And there is no lack of projects. Luciana Tomasi is currently fund raising for Carlos Gerbase’s feature ROTEIROS ENCONTRADOS NUM COMPUTADOR / SCREENPLAYS FOUND IN A COMPUTER, which will cost an estimated R$ 1.5 million."
(Mônica Teixeira, TELA VIVA magazine, # 130, August/2003)
 
"Fifteen years on the road, some separations, dozens of shorts, important features, documentaries and TV productions. Working with the same technical crew in almost all their productions, Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre has consolidated itself as a production company that portrays Rio Grande do Sul in a realistic way."
(Ana Carolina Costa, Luz e Cena magazine # 60, May/2004)
 
"Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre is an exceptional success story in the Brazilian market. It is one of the few companies outside Rio and São Paulo whose films actually shine on Brazilian screens. Over the last 15 years it has become synonymous with quality. It has won 150 national and international awards for its productions for film and television. Some of them are present in the anthologies of the best miniseries ever made by Globo television, such as Agosto (1993), Memorial de Maria Moura (1994), Luna Caliente (1999). On film, their most recent success was The Man Who Copied, a R$ 3 million production featuring Luana Piovani, Leandra Leal, Pedro Cardoso and Lázaro Ramos in an entertaining story with a surprising ending."
(Eduardo Guimaraens, Forbes magazine, 23/07/2004)
 
"Ultimately, what is that defines a good work? Revenue, awards, pleasure? With five feature films released in the last six years, including MEU TIO MATOU UM CARA (My uncle killed a guy) and the recent SAL DE PRATA (Silver Salt), Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre has become one of the country’s main producers of quality movies. But nothing is ready-made. They only work on what they believe in. That is the recipe for the house located in a quiet Porto Alegre neighborhood, where three couples work – together – making movies for the world.
(Emilio Fraia, TRIP magazine, November/2005)