São Paulo – The movie Arabescos: do mascate ao doutor (Arabesques: from the Peddler to the Doctor, in a direct translation), by Beatriz Le Senechal won the short film contest The Arabs and the March 25th Street in the Official Jury and Popular Jury categories. The competition was held by the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe), with the support of Grupo Bandeirantes, and the winners were announced this Wednesday evening (25th) during a cocktail party held at Esporte Clube Sírio, in São Paulo, for the celebration of Arab Community Day.
The production brings testimonies from Arab immigrants and descendants talking about the community and its generations, from the first Syrians and Lebanese that arrived in Brazil to work as peddlers, through the development of their businesses and to the different profession choices made by their sons and grandsons.
“I’m at a loss of words, it was a huge surprise”, said Senechal to ANBA after receiving the awards from Salem Nasser, Icarabe’s president, Carlos Ceglia, director of Middle East Department at Foreign Ministry (Itamaraty), Fernando Capez (from the Brazilian Social Democracy Party-PSDB), and from the dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors in Brazil, Ibrahim Alzeben, who is also ambassador of Palestine.
Senechal, 32 years old, produced the material for final exams of her journalism major course in 2004, but recently concluded a master’s degree in cinema in France and, after learning about the contest, decided to work the material again applying the knowledge she acquired in post-graduation. “I just couldn’t leave the material on the side, it was a great opportunity to bring it to the audience”, she emphasized.
According to her, the original work was built with “snapshots” of the Arab community in São Paulo. “It talked about religion, cuisine, etc.”, she said. “I revisited the production to adjust it to the theme”, she added. In this case, the theme proposed by the Arab Chamber and Icarabe was the relationship between the Arab community and March 25th Street, in Downtown São Paulo, the place where immigrants from the Middle East settled since the end of the 19th century.
Senechal works with audiovisual production, but plans to dedicate herself more to cinema. She already has some projects and now, with the victory in the contest: “the motivation to continue is huge!”
One curiosity: the young filmmaker is not of Arab descent, but her interest for the topic arose a long time ago. She explains how: “I started to get interested when I took belly dance classes and met wonderful characters.”
Senechal’s movie was selected along with other 27 productions, with four of them being nominated as finalists for the Popular Jury election. The short films were shown in several movie theaters in São Paulo and its greater metro area, and at the end of the movie the audience voted. The Official Jury was formed by Silvia Antibas, Culture Director of the Arab Chamber, Geraldo Adriano Godoy de Campos, Culture Director at Icarabe, and filmmakers Lina Chamie, Otávio Cury and José Roberto Sadek.
“I watched the screenings and liked all [the finalists] of them, everyone was able to follow the theme that the Arab Chamber was searching for”, said the winner. Besides her movie, the other finalists were 25 de Março: a memória do mundo árabe (March 25th: the Memory of the Arab World), by Gustavo Brandão, Ao Mundo Novo (To the New World), by Pedro Jorge, and O Cheiro de Zattar (The Smell of Zattar), by Zeca Miranda.
Promising young talent
The Young Filmmakers award, for directors younger than 18 years old, was also given. The winner was 14 year-old Bruno Rafael Fragoso da Silva, with Melodia do Comércio Popular (Melody of popular trade). He received the award from the president of the Arab Chamber Council, Walid Yazigi, and from the president of Grupo Bandeirantes, João Carlos Saad.
Fragoso, who is attending the first year of high school, said that he wanted to work with cinema since he was a kid and recognized the opportunity when saw the ad about the contest on TV. It was perfect timing since it was right after he met the president of the Brazilian Academy of Cordel Literature, Gonçalo Ferreira da Silva.
The kid put together these two things: he researched, wrote a screenplay with the help of his mother, went to the street to shoot with friends, invited Ferreira to be the narrator and produced a movie that brings together March 25th Street and cordel literature.
He, who already concluded a cinema course, now wants to continue: “I’m writing fiction screenplays and want to continue to make movies and enter them in festivals.”
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
