São Paulo – It was the 11th of September of 2001 when the Brazilian filmmaker Otavio Cury and his family arrived in the city of Homs, in Syria, on their holiday trip. This was the first time that Otavio set foot on the Arab country, which his great-grandfather left in 1926 to come to Brazil. On the only day that the filmmaker spent in the city, he discovered a 500-page book written by his great-grandfather, Daud Constantino Cury. "That was how I became interested in investigating the story, the lost memories of my great-grandfather," said to ANBA the filmmaker and producer of production company Outros Filmes, which will produce, by the end of the year, the feature film Constantino, based on the story of his great-grandfather.
The book’s translation from classical Arabic into Portuguese started being made in 2007, in the city of São Paulo, by an Iraqi who lives in Brazil. With a few translations in his hands, Otavio went seeking further information. He went to the Syrian consulate in São Paulo and to the Arab Syrian Cultural Centre. "I would record footage of every place I went to and every conversation I had, thinking that I might put a script together and then seek funding," said Cury.
According to him, in late 2008 the Constantino film project obtained two lines of financing, one from the São Paulo State Cinema Fostering Program, of the Secretariat for Culture of the state of the same name, and another from the Iran Documentary Fund (IDF). "In spite of that, we are still seeking additional funding," said the filmmaker.
With the cash in hand, Cury and his team of three more people, including the photographer Raquel Brust, from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, travelled to Syria in 2009 to start shooting the film. Within a month, the team, with authorization from the Syrian government and aided by the Brazilian embassy in Damascus, began shooting footage and conducting more in-depth research on the story of Constantino. "When I returned to Homs, what I discovered was something 50 times larger and more moving than I first had thought (about his great-grandfather)," said the filmmaker.
In Homs, Cury realized that in addition to having been a Math teacher – which was the only information he had prior to finding the book –, his great-grandfather had also been a poet, a journalist, a playwright, a composer, a musician, an activist, and an Arts teacher. According to the filmmaker, his great-grandfather was one of a handful of Christian teachers to teach in Homs in the 19th century, in a country that had been living under Ottoman domain fro four centuries.
"I learned that he founded the first newspaper in the city of Homs, which is still in print, and I also found all of the articles that he wrote," said Cury, who visited the newsroom of the Homs Newspaper, founded in 1909. Another discovery was a church in which musicians still sing a song written by Constantino during masses. "I also went to two schools that he taught in, and which are still operating in the city," said Cury.
According to the filmmaker, his great-grandfather was also very important to the history of Syrian theatre. Constantino was linked to Abu Khalil Al-Qabbani, regarded as the father of Arab theatre and the main author in Arab Renaissance. The two worked together at the Khan Al-Zait theatre, in Damascus, and then Constantino took him to Homs when the Al-Qabbani theatre was burnt down by the Turks.
"This film is going to go beyond the story of my great-grandfather. It is also going to approach the final period of the Ottoman Empire, which lasted 400 years," said Cury, who has already got 100 hours worth of footage. As the research unfolded and he made new discoveries about the story of his great-grandfather, Cury ended up shooting footage in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey as well. "I have been working on this film for four years. Now, nearly everything has been shot already, and we are in the assembly phase," added he, who should release the film at movie theatres in 2011.
On the sidelines of the film, Cury and photographer Raquel Brust are going to release a photography and poetry book, featuring making-of footage and texts by special guests, including poems by Constantino. The book is going to be published in three different languages, Portuguese, Arabic and English. "We are looking for sponsorship for this publication," said Cury, who is getting support from Arab and Brazilian people and institutions.
According to the filmmaker, the beginning of the work, which involved translation and research, was quite difficult and exhausting. "I even gave up a few times," he said. "After the euphoria has passed, after being moved many times, maybe I feel a little more Syrian, but I am not Syrian. I have come to admire the history and culture of those people, who are amazing, generous, hospitable people," he stated.
Otavio’s memories
Otavio Cury, 38, holds a degree in Agronomy from the University of São Paulo (USP), but never worked as an agronomist. At age 30 he decided to study Cinema and the first production company that he worked in was Mutante Filmes, in the city of São Paulo, where he shot his first documentary film, Cosmópolis, in 2005. "The video was born from the 450th anniversary of the city of São Paulo. We decided to shoot a film on the city to show the part that immigrants played in the city’s history," said Cury, who directed the documentary along with Camilo Tavares and Cói Belluzzo.
Among the 12 characters in the film there is an Egyptian and two Syrians who tell some of their stories. The documentary pleased the crowd, was selected for the main film festivals in Brazil, and screened at several European festivals. This year, after receiving Arabic subtitles, with sponsorship from the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, the film was screened in Syria. The result: two more screenings are already scheduled for this year in Damascus.
Another of Otavio’s films fresh out of the oven is Xié, named after a river in the Amazon Forest. The feature film depicts a group of volunteer surgeons from the city of Campinas, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, who travel to the Amazon and set up temporary hospitals to serve an Indian village, with over 500 patients awaiting surgery. The film should be released before the end of the year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
