Kátia Lund takes part in the making of the first film by Cinema Nosso's School-Producer

Intensive learning. That was how those that participated in the School-Producer described the experience had over the last few days on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of May, when the filming of Happy Easter took place. This is the first short film to be carried out as part of the project and was lucky enough to have the participation of director Kátia Lund, who as well as being one of the founders of Cinema Nosso also co-directed "News from a private war" ("Notícias de uma guerra particular", with João Moreira Salles), and "City of God"("Cidade de Deus", with Fernando Meirelles) and directed an episode of "Invisible Children", ("Crianças Invisíveis), amongst a series of other productions.

The School-Producer works in two areas: cinema and animation cinema. Sponsored by Art Venture, it is the Audiovisual School Cinema Nosso's most advanced level and it is in its first year of running. On this course, students selected from the regular courses have a closer contact with professionals, gaining experiences close to those of the professional market, in the production of institutional, commercial or authorial films.

The initial idea for “Happy Easter” arose at the beginning of the School-Producer classes in March of this year, when the students were given a range of film storylines to analyse, including some discussing traffic and consumption of drugs in Rio de Janeiro. "We did not want to make a film that was based in a commonly used setting like those set in favelas", explained 20 year old André Tavares, the director of the short film.

So the story of a middle-upper class family that smuggle synthetic drugs inside Easter eggs, came about. At one point, the daughter ends up ingesting one of the pills causing the family severe distress. The script was written by the director and Raquel Beatriz, also from the School-Producer.

During the filming, the students had the luxury of director Kátia Lund's support. She was on set collaborating with the direction of the film, supervising everyone's work and offering tips to the novice film-makers. Kátia’s experience helped resolve everything.

Having to rush meant that she had to explain the need to focus our objectives. As a result, we managed to take out many things that were unnecessary”, explains André. According to 18 year-old Diogo Mirandela, whose role was cameraman “Kátia would point us in the right direction whenever we were off track”. “We expected her to be extremely rigorous, but she was very sensitive to the fact that a lot of the people there were not professionals” he confirms. The other professionals invited were Leandro Afro and Júlio César Siqueira, who collaborated, respectively, with the production and direction of the photography of the film.

Despite this though, there were still difficulties with the making of “Happy Easter”. One of which was finding a typical middle-upper class apartment available. Firstly, there was the possibility of using one in Tijuca, however it was very small. Afterwards, another one in Jardim Botânico became available that seemed perfect, however building work was soon to begin there. As there was little time available, the only solution was to go back to the apartment in Tijuca, which caused changes in the cut-out of the photography, in the positioning of the cameras, and of the script, mainly in the final scene. “The last takes were going to be in a continuous shot, however we had to re-think them and re-write the final part of the script”, explains the director. Overall, he feels that it all worked out well in the end. “It’s normal to experience problems, they occur on all film sets”.

For the students that participate in School-Producer, “Happy Easter” was a great turning point. They learnt on the spot the importance of knowing how to improvise, to act with little time and principally to keep focused. “The other films [from Cinema Nosso] we make using the materials available at the school, within the length of a lesson, but with this one it was all done in a short amount of time. This was new for us: working with the professionals invited, with hired equipment, and sticking to a budget and time limits. We learnt how to overcome all these difficulties”, says André. The cameraman Diogo also showed that he was satisfied with the results, “It was three days of filming, during which I was able to observe an impressive development. On Monday, (the first day of filming), I felt like crying when I saw the images. By Tuesday, the results were already entirely different”.

The director-president of the Audiovisual School Cinema Nosso, Luis Carlos Nascimento, accompanied the whole filming process and admitted he was surprised with what he saw. “The students exceeded my expectations. They managed to do an excellent job. Despite lack of experience they were all extremely professional”. Whilst “Happy Easter” is in the post-production phase, Luis is already thinking about the repercussions of the film and the possibility of showing off the students work. “It is a film that brings a more refined technical quality, more so than any of the films that have been produced at Cinema Nosso previously. The students are also now on a more advanced grade. The intention is to enter them in the competitive festival showings, such as the Rio International Film Festival, (Festival de Cinema do Rio)”.

The director André bets that the story of an everyday family will attract the interest of the viewers. “The film talks about an ordinary topic but coming from an original perspective, which is that of a child from a middle class family. The intention is not to pass on concepts of right and wrong, rather to show the consequences of the actions of a perfect family, in which the parents argue, spoil the daughter…”.

The School-Producer’s next two cinema films have already been planned. The first, about homosexuality during adolescence, will have the collaboration on Fernando Meirelles (“City of God”, “The Constant Gardner”, “Blindness”, amongst others), who will take part in the film shoots on the 13th, 14th and 15th of August. The second will be, most probably, based on eating habits.

The School-Producer of animation is also preparing a film about veganism - a life philosophy which bases itself on the defense of animal rights and includes eating and consumption habits, and is finalizing films made by the videographers sector at Cinema Nosso. The participants are organized by Ana Rita Nemer, educator at Cinema Nosso and animator at the Animation Nucleus of CTAv and Stânio Soares, responsible for videographers at Canal Futura.

According to the director of Cinema Nosso “our intention is to turn the School-Producer self-sufficient, turning the films into products to be sold to television, institutions or to be made for external commissions, amongst others”.