Ilustrada – Folha de São Paulo
FOLHA DE S.PAULO – CADERNO ILUSTRADA 28/08/2014
In SP, a couple give way their apartment residence for film shooting, testing and creation
Guilherme Genestreti
On the double bed, an actor and an actress rehearse a sex scene. In the next room, all painted in pink and full of drawings and stuffed animals, three other actresses stage a discussion. In the living room, the film director and the director of photography deliberate whether it is better to run the short film with many or only one shooting plan.
“Come on in. Do not mind the mess,” says the actress and cast coach Nara Sakarê, 47 y.o., introducing me to the two-room apartment where she lives, in Itaim Bibi, an upscale neighborhood in the west of São Paulo city.
Two years ago, she and her husband, screenwriter Andrew Collazzi, 39 y.o, opened their home to serve as a space for shooting short films, scenes rehearsal, creation of scripts and cinematographic experiments. “This is not a formal production company, is a concept,” says Nara.
Orbiting the AP 43, as they named this research group in cinema, there are 24 actors, four writers, three directors, as well as 16 technical staff people – art and photography directors, camera men, assemblers, and other – and, in addition, film directors such as Roberto Gervitz (“Underground Game”) and André Sturm (” Marriage of Paper “), who came closer to see what is happening there.
From AP43 there have already left four short films, three of them in post-production phase, and another one, “Canine”, which will be sent to international festivals.
“For every scene here, I force myself to find a completely different aesthetic solution than I would do, if I was on the usual run of making a film,” says Gustavo Raulino, sitting on the couch in the living room.
Director Roberto Gervitz counted on the AP43 in order to take script readings for his latest film, “Horse Hands”, the novel adaptation of writer Daniel Galera.
On the eve of shooting the film, which should hit theaters next year, one of the actresses of the casting abandoned the project, and Gervitz found on AP43 a substitute for her, the actress Áurea Maranhão.
HOMEMADE PRODUCTION
Casting coach in films like “City of God” (2002), Nara Sakarê was looking for a proper place to train theater actors who wanted to learn cinema acting.
“But I could not stand the rehearsal room, where we set a table, a chair and a glass of water and we have to ask actors to imagine and pretend that they are in another place. It had to be a real house! If it is to pretend an actor is bathing, then it has to be a real shower”, she says.
Nara’s husband now and then was surprised with a screaming actress standing on the living room table, only in her panties. “I realized that some of the things they were rehearsing could result in scenes,” says the screenwriter.
Nara began to film the process, which is documented in the project site. Friends, such as directors Alexandre Carvalho (“From the Outside”) and the short film maker Gustavo Raulino, were curious. Other technical movie people came to know.
“Not only is the actor who run out of practice between one movie and another. Technicians also have this need for constant exercise,” says Nara.
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the actors develop scenes from characters who they would like to interpret. On Fridays, they film. And on Mondays? “That’s the day of my house, no one even passes by,” says Nara.
The more than 40 people who circulate there pay a monthly fee, the amount of which the owners do not reveal.
Nara says she does not disclose too much about AP43. “People come more by word of mouth but to get into my house, it’s like a dating – I have to get interested artistically”.
One of the rules is that the productions have to be shot at least 80% within the AP43, the “main actor of the cast,” according to Nara.
Reflections of this process are in almost every room: the bathroom sink was removed to another wall just to give more setback for the camera; in the bedroom, there are two different wallpapers, a result of the setting for a short film.
Director Roberto Gervitz wants to shoot a short film on site. “At AP43 it is possible to deepen the relationship with the actors, which is not possible on a set by lacking of time,” he says.
It is 5.30 pm. Filmed by photography director André Szilágyi, a couple of actors is rehearsing a dramatic scene. Angela Ribeiro plays a frustrated woman who cannot have kids, and collects in bottles the milk taken from her breasts. Exhausted, her husband (Ricardo Fialho) abandons her.
The doorbell rings. With a backpack, coming from school Maria Rosa, 5 y.o., daughter of the true couple, the apartment owners. Collazzi, the father, takes the girl to her room. “She sees all this movement and always ask me: ‘Dad, Is this a scene or is it for real? ‘.”
MY HOUSE, MY MOVIE
Three projects were already born on AP43:
“Horse Hands”
Roberto Gervitz film, not yet released, used the apartment for script readings, actors testing and there he casted one of the leading actresses: Áurea Maranhão.
“The Party”
First production of AP43, the short film directed by Marcelo Souza Carvalho and Alexander monitors the result of a five hours improvisation.
“Canine”
In this short film, Fazzio Lucas, a man working with dental prostheses is married to a woman who became a tetraplegic.
