(35 mm, 6 min, color, 1999)      Three minutes. The time it takes to pass the baton and run 1600 meters. The time it takes to boil an egg. The time it takes to make a decision that can change your life, before the coin drops. STILL IMAGES

Photo by Carlos Gerbase: Lisa Becker

Director: Ana Luiza Azevedo

Executive Producers: Nora Goulart and Luciana Tomasi
Written by: Jorge Furtado
Cinematographer: Alex Sernambi
Art Director: Fiapo Barth
Music by: Leo Henkin
Editor: Giba Assis Brasil

A Casa de Cinema PoA Production

Main Cast:
Lisa Becker (Marília)
Werner Schünemann (the Magician's voice, in portuguese)
Sérgio Lulkin (the Magician's voice, in english)

FULL CAST AND CREW
 

Prizes

• 27th Gramado Film Festival, 1999:
  Special Jury Award for Regional Film.
• 10th International Short Film Festival, São Paulo, 1999:
  Popular Jury Award, Espaço Unibanco Prize
• 7th Cuiabá Film Festival, 1999:
  Best Art Direction.
• 6th Vitória Cine Vídeo, 1999:
  Best Fiction Film and Best Art Direction.
• 32nd Brasília Film Festival, 1999:
  Best Short Film.
• 1st Cinema Brasil Award (Ministery of Culture), 2000:
  Humberto Mauro Prize for the Best Short Film.
• 53rd Cannes Film Festival, France, 2000:
  The only brazilian short film in the official competition.
• 8th Capalbio Film Festival (Itália), 2001:
  Haibun Prize for The Best Creative Idea. 

Reviews

"Three Minutes is pure cinema: the fate of a couple is decided in the time a coin phone call lasts, in the time it takes to run a relay race (seen on TV), in the time it takes water to boil."
(José Geraldo Couto, Folha de São Paulo, 20/08/99)

"Ana Luiza Azevedo had already made other good films about social issues, and here she sends her message about the condition of women in today’s society through a message left on an answering machine."
(M.J., Jornal do Brasil, 23/11/99)

"THREE MINUTES is a film with feminine sensitivity, directed with talent and rigor. This is the time you can make a decision that can change a life – or two, as it is the decision of a woman who must face the dilemma of going away and leaving the man she loves or staying with him and being frustrated. Beautiful and delicate."
(Luiz Zanin Oricchio, O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO, 30/11/99)

"THREE MINUTES, by Ana Luiza Azevedo, also deals with a socially eclipsed figure – in this case, the wife of a traveling circus magician. Dusk lights define the fate of this woman who is anxious because instead of having a nomadic and adventurous life, hers is a sedentary and secure life. The image of a trailer in a field, the figure of Mandrake painted on it and the voice of the magician on the answering machine saying that not even he can be in all places at all times, suggest an approximation with the Fellinian imagery. (...) Three Minutes represents more than a private drama. It is a sociological picture made with abundant imagination, sensitivity and an unusually careful production design."
(Antônio Gonçalves Filho, O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO, 02/03/2000)

"Even more impressive, due to its mastery of the film language, is THREE MINUTES, by the Brazilian Ana Luiza Azevedo, who, in a film lasting twice as long as its title states, constructs a subtle evocation of the mental landscape of a woman fallen victim to a childhood dream. All the films in this program tell stories, or suggest them, none of them enunciate a discourse, preferring to trust the direction and their particular means to produce emotion and entertainment."
(Jean-Michel Frodom, Le Monde 23/05/2000)

"Ana Luiza Azevedo’s film lasts only three minutes, but it deals with two crucial themes: a relationship breakup and the desire to find a better future."
(Juan Rodríguez Flores, La Opinión, Los Angeles, 28/07/2000)

23/06/1999