International panel debates still and moving images at the 2nd Brazil Film Festival in China

Zara Arshad, Alessandro Rolandi & Bruno Porto_ photo by Caue Ferraz

At the opening of the poster exhibition “Discover the Brazilian Cinema” presented at the 2nd Brazil Film Festival in Beijing, its co-curator Bruno Porto was joined by British designer Zara Arshad and Italian multimedia artist Alessandro Rolandi in an panel to address the relation between moving and still images: movies and its posters. The trio discussed aspects of contemporary marketing and promoting techniques – in which target audiences may only see a poster when they reach the theater, long after they’ve watched the trailer and read about it online – that subvert the original role of the poster, changes in technology that liberate the poster from paper, as well as its collectible aspects, and some of the “style formulas” specific genres use.

The debate and the exhibition were some of the parallel events of the 2nd Brazilian Film Fest in China, that took place at the Broadway Cinematheque MOMA in Beijing from November 17-22. It also featured a concert by musician, actor and soundtrack composer André Abujamra and a Q&A session with André Klotzel, director of Reflections of a Blender, the movie that won the festival Judge’s Choice Award. The international jury was composed by directors Xie Fei, Liu Jiayin, Sam Voutas and Vicky Mohieddeen & movie critic Raymond Zhou.

Descubra o Cinema Brasileiro poster exhibition_

Curated by graphic designers Billy Bacon and Bruno Porto, “Discover the Brazilian Cinema” features works by 30 graphic artists from diverse backgrounds, generations and parts of Brazil that encourage – through curiosity, beauty and witty visual solutions – the Chinese audience to enjoy Brazilian films. The show had been presented before at the 10th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2007 and the Pernambuco Design Salon in 2008. It was also selected for the 9th Brazilian Graphic Design Biennial, that traveled to Mexico and China in 2009.