Charleroi (Belgium), 1936

By Afrânio Mendes Catani

Film critic, essayist, professor, screenwriter, writer, and director. From a French family, he lived in Paris until 1948. He arrived in Brazil in 1949, settling in São Paulo. He attended the Brazilian Cinematheque and, in the 1950s, began writing for the “Suplemento Literário” of O Estado de S.Paulo and other newspapers and magazines. In 1965, alongside Paulo Emílio Salles Gomes, Lucila Ribeiro Bernardet, Pompeu de Souza, and others, he was one of the founders of the University of Brasília (UnB). He transferred to the University of São Paulo (USP) in 1968.

He has an extensive body of work, with notable titles including Brasil em tempo de cinema (1967), Trajetória crítica (1978), O que é cinema (1980), Piranha no mar de rosas (1982), Cineastas e imagens do povo (1985 and 2004), Cinema e história do Brasil (co-authored with Alcides F. Rames, 1988), Aquele rapaz (fiction and memory, 1990), Voo dos anjos: Bressane, Sganzerla (1990), Os histéricos (co-authored with Teixeira Coelho, 1993), O autor no cinema (1994), Historiografia clássica do cinema brasileiro (1995), A doença, uma experiência (fiction, 1996), Céus derretidos (co-authored with Teixeira Coelho, 1996), and Caminhos de Kiarostami (2004). He wrote collective works with José Carlos Avellar, Maria Rita Galvão, Miguel Borges, and Ismail Xavier, among others, in addition to the political work Guerra camponesa do Contestado (1979).

He was a screenwriter for about a dozen films, including O caso dos irmãos Naves (Luís Sérgio Person, 1967), Gamal, o delírio do sexo (João Batista de Andrade, 1969), Um céu de estrelas (1996), and Através da janela (2000), both with Tata Amaral. He participated as an actor, playing small roles in more than ten films, and also directed and produced several documentaries and served as editing assistant for Gamal, o delírio do sexo.