Fernanda Pessoa
Directing
Biography
Fernanda Pessoa is a Brazilian filmmaker and visual artist, working primarily on documentary, experimental cinema and videoinstallations. She holds a PhD at University of São Paulo (ECA/USP) researching women’s experimental cinema made in Latin America, and a MFA in Film Studies at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, under Philippe Dubois’ direction. In 2017, Pessoa released her first feature documentary "Stories our cinema did (not) tell”, which participated in several international festivals and is currently on Brazilian Netflix. Her second long documentary “Arid Zone” received an Honorable Mention at Dok Leipzig. She was a Berlinale Talents in 2019. Her work has been screened in festivals like IDFA, RIDM, DOC NYC, DocLisboa, Brasilia Film Festival, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Cinélatino Toulouse, and in institutions as BIENALSUR, REDCAT/CalArts, IMS (Institut Moreira Salles) São Paulo’s Museum of Sound and Image, Paço das artes, among others.
Known For
Filled with raunchy laughs, this documentary compiles outrageous scenes from sex-comedies that shaped Brazil's "pornochanchada" boom of the 1970s.
Stories Our Cinema Did (Not) Tell
Two friends respond to the challenges of the present by connecting through a playful provocation. Separated by America’s hemispheres, one in Brazil and the other in the U.S, they communicate strictly through video letters during a year. As a rule, each letter is formally and thematically inspired by a woman experimental filmmaker. As life unfolds, they express on film what they want to share with each other: the experience of being a recent immigrant, the expectations of political elections in both countries, their fears and hopes, all while observing the different women around them.
Swing and Sway
In 2001, Fernanda was a 15-year-old Brazilian foreign exchange student in Mesa, Arizona, considered the most conservative city in the United States. Fifteen years later – and two months before Donald Trump’s election – she’s back to understand her experience there.
Arid Zone
In a period of isolation, far away from each other, 2 friends reconnect through video-letters, inspired by the poetic gaze of women experimental filmmakers: Marie Menken, Joyce Wieland, Gunvor Nelson, Yvonne Rainer. Fernanda is a Brazilian living in São Paulo, Adriana is a Mexican-Brazilian living in Los Angeles. They both share their inspiration while capturing the reality of these times.
Same/Different/Both/Neither
In 2021, hundreds of thousands of people took over the streets in Brazil, in the midst of a pandemic, to protest against the Bolsonaro government. Inspired by Joyce Wieland's 1973 film of the same name, “Solidarity” portrays these manifestations by focusing on the expressiveness of human hands rather than Wieland's feet. Gestures of affection, resistance, protection, joy or repression are revealed in these images made in super 8mm ektachrome.
Solidarity
Is the revolution alive? Can we envision alternatives to a capitalist world? Did socialism fail? An internationalist (time) travel through seven countries that had revolutionary experiences in the 20th century is followed by a voice reciting Rosa Luxemburg’s last text, written one day before she was murdered in 1919.
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