Crime, Dramas and Dreams

Crime, dramas and dreams: police suspense, comedy and historical portraits under the eyes of contemporary Production Design.

Guests and works: Claudia Calabi - Carcereiros (2st season), police thriller
Juliana Ribeiro - Cine Holliúdy 2, comedy/period
Renata Pinheiro - Zama, epic/historical

Mediators:
Amanda De Stéfani
Laura Carvalho

Audiovisual genres are a fictional way of telling stories, being easily assimilated and recognized by the public. This form of communication is very popular and long-lasting, with genres transforming over time, adapting to social changes, new audiences, tastes and contexts, while continuing to rely on certain conventions so that they are clearly perceived by the public.

Genres today define many Brazilian and international audiovisual productions, both in productions for streaming platforms and in original films. The panel, organized by Brada, has the intention of presenting the different contemporary audiovisual productions based on narrative genres and also signed by Brazilian Production Designers. Zama, by Lucrécia Martel and Production Design by Renata Pinheiro (2017), Cine Holliúdy 2, by Halder Gomes and Production Design by Juliana Ribeiro (2018) and the series Carcereiros (1st season), by José Eduardo Belmonte and Production Design by Claudia Calabi (2021), are audiovisual works with national and international audience reach, with budgets and teams of different sizes. These three works highlight, above all, the historical/epic, comedy and police thriller genres, respectively, and the central question at the panel is: to what extent does the complexity of Production Design in these three works accept or subvert the norms of narrative genres?

Production Design is a great ally in the execution of genre norms as both are based on iconography, that is, on symbolic images that can carry meanings. In that sense, objects, elements of scenography, costumes and makeup help in the construction of the iconography of a genre: the gun and the horse for an epic film, the blood and dark corners for the police thriller, the colorful dressing for a comedy film, for example.

For this Panel, we bring three South American films, two Brazilian and one Argentine (in co-production with several countries), which also leads us to debate the narrative genres in the context of our inherent social and production panorama.

We invite Production Designers Renata Pinheiro, Juliana Ribeiro and Claudia Calabi to show their processes, thoughts, documents from the art department (moodboards, bibles, sketches, layouts, technical drawings, etc.) to highlight the complexity and beauty in the spatial formulation. visual aspect of his projects, establishing the relationship between creation in Production Design and narrative genres.

Bios
Claudia Calabi
Graduated in visual arts and has a vast experience as a Production Designer in cinema and TV. Among her works, stand out the feature Abe and TV series Carcereiros. The documentary Jailed is her debut as a director.

Juliana Ribeiro
From Ceara, graduated in Architecture from the Federal University of Ceará, in 2009 she moved to scenography and artworks. For over ten years in the cinema, she has signed the production design for feature films, shorts, and TV series, besides music videos, advertising, and projects as an art assistant and set designer. Among her main works is the sequence of films “Cine Holliúdy” (two feature films and a TV series), "Time Hustler" and "Bem Vinda à Quixeramobim", by Halder Gomes. Winning some awards at festivals, she had her work for the feature film “O Shaolin do Sertão” nominated for the prize of Best Production Design at the Brazilian Film Academy in 2018. She currently lives in São Paulo.

Renata Pinheiro
Director, Production Designer and Artist graduated in visual arts at UFPE. She was a resident artist at John Moore University, UK; and studied at INA (Institut National de L’Audiovisuel), France. She’s been production designer since the 90’s, receiving national and international awards throughout her career. Renata Pinheiro is production designer for distinguished films like "Zama"” by Lucrécia Martel (in which she won many awards like Fenix, Condor and Platino), “Deserto” by Guilherme Weber, “A Festa da Menina Morta” by Matheus Nachtergaele, “Tatuagem” by Hilton Lacerda, “Baixio das Bestas”, “Febre do Rato” and “Amarelo Manga”, by Cláudio Assis, among others.

Amanda De Stéfani
Bachelor’s degree in Cinema at FAAP and master’s degree in Interior Design, IED-SP, Amanda De Stéfani has been working in art departments of audiovisual productions since 2005. She has worked in short and feature films, TV series, theater, advertising, events, to name a few. As a Production Designer, her main focus is on feature films. She also has authorial research in visual arts and teaches free courses of Production Design. She is a member of Brada - Women Production Designers of Brazil, ABC - Brazilian Cinematography Association and PDC - Production Designers Collective.

Laura Carvalho
Production designer graduated in Audiovisual Arts from the University of São Paulo, she holds a Master's Degree in Film Theory & Aesthetics from the same institution. She has participated in national and international projects, such the feature films El Día es Largo y Oscuro (Mexico/Colombia), by Julio Hernández Cordón, Wilding Country, Hug, The Swamp Dead Man (Hong Kong-Brazil); the French series Death Corner and Demain si J’y Suis, Awakening Multimedia Performance (Singapore), the Italian-Brazilian animated film Pety’s Adventures, as well as several others in Brazil. She is also an alumnus of Berlinale Talents 2021 Production Design Studio Program and has participated in Artist in Residency Programs in Japan and Brazil, with projects investigating the presence of color in popular architecture. She is member of the Production Designers Collective (international) and Brada - Collective of Women Production Designers from Brazil.