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Brazilian Film Depicts 1970s Drag Act

BY BTL STAFF

As the finale to the Lusophone Film Fest, the State Theater will present a showing of "Tattoo (Tataugem)," a Brazilian film directed by Hilton Lacerda that was released in 2013. Professor Larry LaFountain of the University of Michigan will speak in introduction to the 110 minute long film.
The Brazilian military dictatorship lasted more than 20 years, from 1964 to 1985, and withstood several waves of youthful rebellion, usually by cracking down on cultural movements that threatened to get out of hand (in 1969, for example, singer-songwriters Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso were imprisoned and subsequently sent into exile). By the mid-1970s it was possible for an anarchist theatre group to emerge in suburban Recife and put on subversive, queer, avant-garde cabaret shows, just so long as it stayed underground and criticism of the military remained implicit.
Clecio (Irandhir Santos) is director of such a group: The Star-Spangled Floor. But, when mild mannered soldier Fininha (Jesuita Barbosa) is drawn into the uninhibited world of the cabaret, and gradually acknowledges his attraction to Clecio, it becomes harder and harder to keep these parallel and mutually uncomprehending spheres apart.
Hilton Lacerda's debut is both a colorful time capsule and a potent drama that has earned comparisons to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
The Lusophone Film Fest showcased the contemporary cinema of the Portugese-speaking world. The second event of its kind in Ann Arbor and at U of M, the primary objectives of the event were to provide high visibility to the Portugese language and its cultures at the university and throughout the region, while contributing to program-building efforts currently underway in Portugese.
While there are Brazilian film festivals in New York City, Los Angeles and Miami, as well as Brazilian film series in Washington D.C. and at UCLA and a Portugese film series at UMass-Dartmouth, there are no film festivals or series in the country that offer a pan-Lusophone scope such as this event does.
Most of the films garnered awards at film festivals, and some have been included in top 10 lists by critics in 2014. Films dealt with a plurality of topics ranging from the historical memory of slavery, colonialism, military dictatorships, African immigration in Europe, living with HIV, race and class dynamics, drug trafficking, gender and sexuality. There was a mixture of world-renowned veterans as well as emerging filmmakers. All of them share a commitment towards the cinematic representation of social, cultural and historical issues that are critical to their respective nations through a variety of innovative aesthetic approaches and narrative forms.
"Tattoo (Tataugem)" will play at 7 p.m. Dec. 3 at the State Theater, 233 S. State St., Ann Arbor.

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