HOW IT ALL STARTED – The History of Cinema in Brazil
Hello!
It's always nice to talk about topics that warm our hearts and as you well know, we at Prospecto are passionate about cinema and the entire film industry.
Our brokerage was created by our founder's desire to unite two passions, insurance with audiovisual.
And today, many years later, we can share some of our technical knowledge and market experiences with you. What a great privilege!
Today we inaugurate here on our #MondayBlog a board that will appear from time to time, entitled “How It All Began”.
And as it could not be otherwise, our inaugural post of this new frame brings the story of the arrival of cinema in our country, as well as which waves cinema brought here in our lands from its first day until today, 2022.
Prepared? So here comes the story!
The history of cinema in Brazil begins just 7 months after the first exhibition in the world took place, there in France by the Lumière brothers.
On November 5, 1896, the Belgian Henri Paillier rents a room in Rio de Janeiro and shows 8 short films using his omniograph for people from the Carioca elite. At that time the films were short and captured people moving, landscapes and small everyday situations.
The interesting thing is that we don't celebrate November 5th as national cinema day here in Brazil, as is usual in other nations. Around the world, cinema day is considered as the day on which there was the first cinematographic exhibition, but Brazil, always innovating, considers our day as the first filming that took place in Brazilian lands, and this only happened a few years later.
According to some sources, the Italian Affonso Segretto was arriving in the country aboard the ship Brèsil and apparently filmed Bahia de Guanabara with his omniograph. Unfortunately, we have no record of this fact, and it seems that this footage would have taken place on June 8th, but the important thing is that a date was chosen, based on the first moving image capture, and we were left with the 19th of June. June as the official day of national cinema!
Cinema arrives in Brazil and in the world in its early years, as a new technology, causing wonder. In the beginning, cinema was not used to tell stories.
In Brazil, for example, the first manifestation of filming took place as a tool for recording social events, such as parties of wealthy families, or political actions, such as the famous cavações, which were films of advertisement ordered.
A year after the first exhibition in the country, the first movie theater was inaugurated, entitled Salão de Novidades Paris, and over time, several other theaters were opened.
The first film made in Brazil is called “Ancoradouro de Pescadores na Bahia de Guanabara” and we only know that this film existed and was shown due to newspaper clippings telling about its screening. As every audiovisual professional knows, film is a very delicate item, flammable and fragile and easy to lose the image.
Old film preservation centers must follow a series of strict policies in order to preserve their collections, such as constant use of air conditioning and care with light exposure and radiation equipment, for example. About this film, we have 1 second of this film in our national archive, everything else has been lost.
Over the years, national cinema began to gain wings and people began to experiment more, telling stories, making short films, and even fiction. One of these films is called “Os Estranguladores” by Antônio Leal, which told the scene of a crime that had become very popular in mid-1908, and it can be considered not only the first fiction but also also the first feature film of Brazilian cinema. Unfortunately, this feature was also lost.
In 1930 after World War I, the United States came to dominate our cinema, largely influenced by an agreement between American studios and our government at the time. This agreement determined that North American productions did not have to pay customs fees to enter here.
And from that time began the “invasion” of foreign culture in our culture through cinema.
Until 1929, approximately, there were no films with built-in sound, what happened was that the films were silent and there was always a band or orchestra accompanying the exhibition of the films, but the actors did not speak.
All that changes in 1929, with the arrival of sound in our cinema! And that brought a little advantage to our national cinema, because foreign films needed to be dubbed, as they were not filmed in Portuguese, obviously.
Our films had greater acceptance in the face of language and cost. Brazilian film was cheaper to produce.
The first Brazilian sound film was a comedy called “Acabaram-se os otários”.
From 1930 onwards, we have a great investment being made in national cinema through the creation of studios and production companies, such as Cinedia and Vera Cruz. Vera Cruz is one of the biggest cases of Brazilian cinema, which produced about 8 feature films a year in its short period of life. That's a lot of production in 5 years!
Unfortunately, Vera Cruz went bankrupt for not being able to match its production expenses with its exhibition financial results.
Brazilian cinema through the chanchada phase, focusing on popular appeal, and then the new cinema era arrived, where we had the famous phrase “A camera in hand and an idea in head”.
After that, between 68 and 70 we had cinema marginal, which had a more underground feel, in which the objective was to make low-cost and more experimental films.
With the arrival of Embrafilme, the government takes on a more direct role in audiovisual production, which can be considered a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the financial incentive is important and on the other, according to critics, there is a danger of controlling the material being created.
The government's aid to cinema took place in several other countries and it was not just a matter of Brazil.
Embrafilme was a company created to take care of our cinema, so foreign films to enter Brazil paid Embrafilme, which used this resource to encourage national productions.
The 70's were marked with pornochanchada, this segment of Brazilian cinema history is very peculiar, where comedy was mixed with sensuality. These films were cheap, and were produced in the “garbage mouth” where Cracolândia is today, where the main studios were in those days, and there was an obligation to make national cinema on behalf of the government of Getúlio Vargas.
The Short Film Law in 1974 is another milestone in our history, with the obligation to always show a short film before the feature, and this translated into motivation for producers to create new materials. This was an example of how the short film can be a very interesting audience tool.
The middle age of Brazilian cinema took place in the Collor Era, only one film was released at that time. At that time, not only were the savings confiscated, but Embrafilme and other audiovisual companies were extinguished.
After that time, we have the retomada of Brazilian cinema, with the creation of the Audiovisual Law and the Ancine, at that time we had the first post- the dark age “Carlota Joaquina”.
It was also at this time that Globo Filmes was born, which really invested in cinema at that time.
The most outstanding films of the time of recovery are City of God, Carandiru and Tropa de Elite.
And finally, we come to the post-resume, with 127 features being released in 2013.
The pós retomada marks the consolidation of Brazilian cinema, in this period we had the work of “Minha Mãe é uma Peça”, box office champion and the phenomenon of movie theaters with national film screenings with more than 1 million spectators.
And, we at Prospecto, believe that we will see included in the history books, the influence of this pandemic that we are experiencing in our cinema.
But as this story is still being written, we believe that what will happen will be an interesting expansion of our cinema, with the implementation of the Paulo Gustavo Law, and also the creation of inclusive content, and in the exhibition of films being expanded to the virtual and not only in movie theaters.
We believe that many exciting things will come with tomorrow in our national cinema!
We hope you enjoyed learning a little about the rich history of our cinema!
We look forward to seeing you for our next #MondayBlog.
Have a great week, lovers!
Prospecto Seguros
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This post was created through research on sites, under the "Fair Use" copyright law, as the research materials fall under public knowledge.
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