Cinema de Lagos Fri 24 OCT, 21h30 Sun 26 OCT, 18h30
Sixty-three-year-old Estamira suffers from schizophrenia. For 20 years she has been spending all her time at the huge Jardim Gramacho rubbish dump near Rio de Janeiro.
From the year 2000, when she began treatment at a psychiatric clinic, director and producer Marcos Prado began to accompany her with his camera. He captures not only her psychotic states full of negative energy, but also moments of tranquility and inner serenity, during which we discover more about her painful past.
Estamira’s children vainly try to prevent their mother from returning to the trash heap where she appears to feel most at home. “No-one can live without Estamira”, she states about herself, and then continues her curious philosophizing, surrounded by other outcasts who move about slowly, apocalyptically surveying the piles of rubbish.
Marcos Prado is a founding partner of ZAZEN PRODUÇÕES.
Officer honoured for Estamira, Marcos in 2010 also produced the fiction feature Elite Squad 2 and his first feature-length fiction Artificial Paradises, released in may 2012. In 2009 he produced Garapa, José Padilha’s documentary that premiered at the Berlin Festival.
Producer of Elite Squad, the biggest hit of 2007, directed by his partner José Padilha, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival 2008. Also in 2007 directed and produced for Live Earth, Al Gore’s NGO, the short documentary Waste. In 2006 his movie Estamira was the documentary with the largest audience in movie theatres. Estamira, the first movie directed by Marcos Prado and released in 2006, won 33 national and international awards, such as best documentary in the prestigious festivals of, among others, Marseille, Karlovy Vary, Havana, Toulouse, Rio de Janeiro and S.Paulo. In 2005, Marcos Prado released his second photography book, Jardim Gramacho, an 11-year project in Rio de Janeiro’s landfill. In 2002, he produced the awardwinning Bus 174. In 2000, Prado produced and co-directed with José Padilha the documentaries Os Pantaneiros for Globosat and Facing The Jaguar and Pantanal Cowboys, for National Geographic Television, also broadcasted by NBC in the US. In 1998 he co-produced the documentary Os Carvoeiros (The Charcoal People Of Brazil), inspired by his first photo shoot containing the same title.
Marcos studied at the Brooks Institute of Photography in California and, as a freelance photographer, was published in the finest magazines and newspapers in Brazil. As documentary photographer, Prado won many national and international awards, such as the prestigious World Press Photo, Focus on Your World, from the UN, Hasselblad Master, among others.
Marcos Prado displays photos in the permanent archives of the Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro (MAM), Assis Chateaubriand Art Museum in S.Paulo (MASP) and Modern Art Museum in Sao Paulo (MAM).
Film-Director and Photography: Marcos Prado
Producer: Marcos Prado e José Padilha
Sound: Leandro Lima
Sound Editing: Rodrigo Noronha
Film Editing: Tuco
Music: Décio Rocha
Assistant Direction: Alexandre Lima
Assistant Editor: Moema Pombo
Production: Zazen Produções Audiovisuais