April 23, 2022

09:04

Priscilla Peixoto – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Entitled ‘Elza Infinita’, the documentary about the success of singer Elza Soares was chosen for the eliminatory phase of one of the main festivals of media arts in the world, the New York Film Festival 2022, held in New York. The work, which shows the strength and talent of the artist, gains more representativeness for having the direction signed by two black filmmakers from Pernambuco: Érika Candido and Natara Ney.

The duo is part of the creation and development of audiovisual content company, Kilomba Produções, a production company focused on the commitment to promote black audiovisual work. Anxiously, they are waiting for the final announcement of the works awarded by the festival, which will be announced next Tuesday, the 26th.

“It is a work interspersed with original numbers, with a prism of people who had studied Elza’s life, not as researchers, but in the place of interpreters. Elza is a producer, director, creator, artist, and businesswoman, and we talk about her in this place of a director, of an Elza who succeeded, because Elza’s story of suffering is already very well told and we wanted to show the story of a rich and successful black woman, because that is what she was, too,” explains Natara Ney.

Team

According to the filmmaker, the original idea for the documentary came from Andréa Alves, from Sarau Agência, a production company that took the show about Elza to performances all over the country. Based on this production, the scriptwriter Dione Carlos built the narrative line of the documentary, as explained by the filmmaker.

“It was a successful show. Erica and I were invited to direct, and we called Dione Carlos, one of the greatest screenwriters in the country, to make the structure of this narrative line. From this, we understood that Elza’s story should be made by the actresses who interpreted her on stage”, explains Natara highlighting the effective participation of black women in the team.

“Another thing that was very important for us in this project was the presence of black women in the whole team. Soundtrack, directors of photography, costume designers, all black, and this is very significant”, emphasizes Érika Candido.

Festivals open doors

For the filmmakers, festivals are a bridge for more people to get to know and have access to quality work done in Brazil, especially by black people. Besides ‘Elza Infinita’, which has already been shown on GloboPlay and GNT, Natara Ney also directed the feature film “Espero Que Esta Te Encontra e Que Este Esteja Bem”, which has participated in festivals in Spain and Lisbon.

“This festival thing is very important because it opens a window of knowledge, exchange, learning. And Elza has a special place, and everything that we can do to celebrate the memory of Elza has to be done, even because we have constant erasures that black artists and creators suffer. To be with her in a festival of this size is a celebration of our elders and of our future. A mark that we exist and that there are, yes, black people making quality audiovisuals in Brazil, and this has to be registered.