Near the muddy waters of the Amazon River, with main events in the city's famous opera house, the Amazonas Film Festival offers a full week-long schedule which includes not only new feature films but short documentaries, videos and workshops. The event aims to help promote tourism and attract producers and directors from all over the globe to make their films in the region.
Attendance at the event can be spiced together with side trips in the city or along the Amazon River. I chose to spend most of my time at the festival itself or at one of my favorite hotels in the world, the Tropical Hotel Manaus. Resembling a gigantic tree house based on land, the hotel with 588 apartments, numerous luxury shops, a tourism agency, pools and a mini zoo forces a visitor to walk, walk, and walk just to go to breakfast or for other activities. Its 19th century French-style architecture reminds a visitor of an age before the current made-in-the USA plastic chain hotels began their reign.
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Tours and Lodging in Manaus with WLH Travel, a company that shares our concern for sustainable and responsible tourism.
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A sumptuous typical Brazilian breakfast with sprinklings of northern culture - including tapioca and fruits of the Amazon region - begins the day in front of the only pool I’ve seen with its own artificial (electronically-controlled) waterfall. The hotel also offers guided hikes, archery, golf, tennis, a sauna and gymnastics led by a staff of instructors.
When not swimming in the pool with Polish film director Roman Polanski (now I can say I swam with the director of "Oliver Twist" which closed the Festival) or sitting at the Teatro Amazonas opera house near veteran American actor Ben Gazzara and jury Canadian director Norman ("Moonstruck") Jewison or interviewing Claudia Cardinale (Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo"), I also got a peek into what native talents from the Amazon and other parts of Brazil are doing.
I was very pleasantly surprised by a series of one minute videos produced by local students. These one minute gems expressed and covered despite time limitations the same subjects as million-dollar, super productions made in Hollywood try to cover: the impact of poverty, jealousy, ecology, crime and violence. Here’s the synopsis of one entry: a local socialite kills an alligator in her backyard, is smeared with blood and quickly cleans up and dresses to attend a gala cinematic opening for the benefit ...to save the Amazon! All in one minute.
Among the off-off opera house offerings, I saw a Brazilian documentary called "Men Can Fly," by Nelson Hoineff which may well get international distribution. The story includes images from the early 1900s of the real father of aviation Santos Dumont. A Brazilian who resided in Paris much of his adult life, Dumont became a national, decorated hero in France when he first flew his bi-plane over the Eiffel Tower. He ultimately committed suicide in his native Petrópolis, a town in state of Rio de Janeiro, dismayed that his noble invention was being used for warfare.
Besides Polanski’s "Oliver Twist," which closed the festival, other highlights of the November 2005 edition included an outdoor showing of "Fitzcarraldo," filmed in 1982 by Werner Herzog with Ms. Cardinale in the Amazon and at the opera house. There was no way to see everything, but my favorites among what I did catch included, besides "The World's Fastest Indian" with the inimitable Anthony Hopkins as a motorcycle racer who refuses to grow old, “Man to Man," a French-UK film by Regis Wargnier about an anthropologist who captures pigmies and brings them to Europe and "Dreaming Lhasa,” an India-UK production by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam about the plight of Tibetan refugees removed from their culture and habitat. The winner of the Festival was "Shooting Dogs” by Michael Caton-Jones, a UK-German production concerning a Catholic Priest and a local Professor of English in Rwanda meeting during the genocide of the Tutsis.
The parties during the Fest would have been the envy of Hollywood with the traditional Amazonian folklore of samba dancers dressed as Bois (Steers), dancing on the sands in front of the Rio Negro Amazon riverside as the food and drink flowed. Amongst the animated crowd were stars of the Brazilian soap opera world, familiar to the natives of course but generally unknown to the foreign visitors.
Other celebrations took place at the numerous cultural centers converted from sumptuous early 20th century mansions of the former Rubber Barons of the Amazon.
Amazonas Film Festival official website.
Order the DVD of Fitzcarraldo on Amazon.com.
