Revista Veja

A Studio-Apartment at Itaim[1] – São Paulo

A 120m² apartment at Pedroso Alvarenga Street in Itaim, for two years has been functioning as an experimentation location for a cinema research group called AP43[2]. The place, and its surroundings, is used by about twenty professionals of the field, as actors, photographers, screenwriters and directors to test cinema performances. Among them are the director Nara Sakarê, responsible for the project, and the screenwriter André Collazzi, the couple that effectively lives at the apartment (at their idle hours). “Here we can discover new dramatic possibilities without the stages and studios hustle”, says Nara. The realism of some scenes caused some unusual situations in the neighborhood. (check the following frames)

> When a neighbor saw the actor Shirtes Filho tied up and gagged at the service area in October, 2012, he thought it was a real kidnapping and called the police. Seven police cars arrived at the apartment and took Nara to the police station to explain herself.

> In March, 2013, training to play a sex addict and alcoholic character, the actress Monalisa Eleno wandered around Itaim with a crumple outfit, as if she had spent all night in a dance club and, sat at the curb, where she started to cry. An old lady, touched with all that “drama”, took her to her home to calm her down.

> To give some realism when playing an unemployed professor that was studying compulsively for a master’s degree until his pregnant wife kicked him out, the actor João Bresser went to Santa Teresa Chapel in august, 2013 searching for some “spiritual support”. He found a priest and stood there for hours talking to him about a life that didn’t exist.

[1] Itaim is a neghborhood located in the south zone of São Paulo.

[2] The name AP43 reffers to Apartment 43.