Carlos Diegues
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Here you can learn about Carlos Diegues’ career and private life facts, read the latest news, find all the awards he has won and watch photos and videos.
PERSONAL DATA OF CARLOS DIEGUES
Age: 81 years old
Born in: MACEIÓ, Alagoas (Brazil)
Born on: 19/05/1940
BIOGRAPHY OF CARLOS DIEGUES
Director and screenwriter. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the Botafogo neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, where he moved with his family at the age of six. He completed his studies at the college of Sant’Ignazio, directed by the Jesuits, and then, despite having already developed a strong love for cinema, he enrolled in the law faculty of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC). The radically different choice with respect to his passion is motivated by the fact that at that historical moment there are no specific schools in the cinema field in Brazil, however, having become a representative of the student college, he manages to cultivate his interest by founding a film club within the university. The initiative arouses considerable interest from other students who share the same passion and together with some of his friends, including David Neves, Arnaldo Jabor and Paulo Perdigão, he begins to experiment with directing in an amateur way. During this period he directed three short films and the most representative of these, “Domingo” (1961), became a sort of manifesto of the Brazilian Cinema Novo movement. His intense activity during the university period is also reflected in the direction of the newspaper “O Metropolitano”, official newspaper of the student movement UME (Metropolitan Union of Students), and in the entrance to the CPC (Center for Popular Culture). He thus becomes one of the major contributors to the birth of Brazilian Cinema Novo, of which he can be considered one of the founders alongside personalities such as Leon Hirszan and above all Glauber Rocha and Nelson Pereira dos Santos, with whom he has a solid and lasting bond. The movement aims to represent the reality of the country trying to arouse a critical conscience in people, using the expressive means of cinema to renew traditional artistic forms. In 1962 he participated in the episodic film “Cinco Vezes Favela” (made together with the directors Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, Leon Hirszan, Marcos Farias and Miguel Borges) with the segment entitled “Escola de Samba Alegria de Viver”. Until the end of the 1960s he continued his activity at home, directing films such as “Ganga Zumba” (1964), “A Grande Cidade” (1966), “Os Herdeiros” (1969), which highlight his restlessness and the utopian desire to transform Brazil through cinema, but he is forced to deal with the Brazilian dictatorship, with which Cinema Novo is in open controversy. In the meantime he also continued his activity as a journalist and critic who saw him participating in the front line in the resistance against the dictatorship, but in 1969 he was forced to leave the country for a period. Together with his wife Nara Leão, singer known as the “muse of bossanova”, who like him actively participates in the resistance, he goes to live first in Italy and then in France, in Paris, where, in 1970, their first daughter Isabel was born. After returning to his country, where his second son Francisco was born in 1972, he continued to devote himself to directing, even though these were the most difficult years of the dictatorship. The consecration came in 1976, with the film “Xica da Silva” which won the Awards for best direction and best film at the Brazilian Film Festival in Brasilia. The reason for such popular success is above all due to the moment of political detente which heralds the end of the dictatorship. This gives the director new insights into cultural changes, condemns the so-called “ideological patrols” in the creation of the work of art and begins to theorize new ideas together with his friend Rocha. In this period he made the most successful films including “Bye Bye Brasil” (1979), “Quilombo” (1984) and “Um Trem para as Estrelas” (1987), which aroused the interest of international critics and which they are all nominated for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The author’s reputation grows up to decree him as one of the greatest Brazilian directors known internationally: in 1981 he is part of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival, his films are screened in the most important international festivals and his cinema becomes the subject of analysis on school texts and subject of study. However, the decline in the government’s funding for cinema – a consequence of the country’s enormous economic crisis coinciding with Fernando Collor de Mello’s rise to government – will slow down his production for the big screen and lead him to devote himself to other projects, especially television, such as the film “Veja esta Canção” (1994), the first attempt in Brazil to bring together cinema and television. It will be a new Audiovisual Law to allow the rebirth of his cinematographic activity with films such as “Tieta do Agreste” (1996), “Orfeu” (1999) and “Deus è Brasileiro” (2002). In 2006 it will be the turn of “O Maior Amor do Mundo”, from an original screenplay of his, and the documentary “Nenhum motif explica a guerra”, made in collaboration with Rafael Dragaud. Among the honors obtained at home, in 2002 he was called to be part of the Superior Council of Social Integration of the Estacio de Sa University and received the prestigious title of Commander of the Order of Cultural Merit. Also esteemed abroad, he is part of the National Cinemateca in France, where he obtained the title of Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2010 he was called to be part of the jury of the Cinéfondation of the 63rd edition of the Cannes Film Festival. As for his private life, after the end of his marriage with Nara Leão, he remarried in 1982 with the film producer Renata Almeida Magalhães with whom he had his daughter Flora, born in 1986.
THE MOST RECENT FILMS BY CARLOS DIEGUES
TIETA DO BRASIL (TIETA DO AGRESTE)
Role: Film director
Year: 1997
UM TREM PARA AS ESTRELAS
Role: Film director
Year: 1987
OUR AMAZONIES
Role: Film director
Year: 1985
QUILOMBO
Role: Film director
Year: 1984 Go to Complete Filmography
THE MOST RECURRING GENRES OF CARLOS DIEGUES
Drama: 70% Comedy: 10% Documentary: 10% …
