The programme offers a springboard to conscious, creative and empowered citizens aged 15 to 26 who want to make their voices heard. Their bold opinions and striking insights deserve more clout in today's society and will shed light on ethical issues and the future of everyone.
Bozar is delighted that BNP Paribas Fortis is once again supporting the new edition of Next Generation, Please!. This season, five projects entirely dedicated to the 'moving image' emerged. Mariana Machado and four other participants shared their ideas, knowledge and wishes to work out concrete positions that they will present to the audience. You can discover the result at the film festival in May 2024.
In collaboration with BNP Paribas Fortis
BNP Paribas Fortis, like Bozar, is convinced that culture contributes to our mental health. That is why the bank is committed to supporting a programme that enables young people to develop their talents in the arts. Through art, they can then devise solutions to social issues that urgently need more attention. BNP Paribas Fortis aims to empower young people so that they can become future leaders who pursue the right goals and role models in both local and international communities.
For BNP Paribas Fortis, diversity among the project's participants is important, just like in Machado's Candela. Everyone should have equal chances to be part of the debate.
Mariana Machado with Candela; her new short film
Mariana Machado is a Brazilian filmmaker based in Brussels. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Film Directing at Luca School of Arts, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Media Studies with a specialization in Film Studies from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. She has been working with independent productions since 2017 and has directed more than ten audiovisual works, such as short films, video art, music videos and audiovisual campaigns. In addition, Mariana has a background as a film educator, film critic, photographer and performer. Over the years, she has also participated in a number of artistic residencies and art exhibitions, as well as being a member of artistic collectives such as Cine Fronteira, Plataforma Doras and SELVVA.
As far as her previous work is concerned, her film Ângelo has been shown at various film festivals and has won several awards, including second prize in the Audience Award category for Best Short Film at the 9th Mostra Ecofalante de Cinema, one of the most important film festivals in Latin America. In 2020, she received the Audiovisual Artist Award from the Brazilian institution Itaú Cultural for her film I'll Take Just What's Needed. In the same year, she won the Aldir Blanc prize for her achievements as a filmmaker.
'Candela', which means light, candle or fire in Spanish, portrays the relationship between three Latin American youths and their relationship with a fourth character: the city of Brussels. Through a poetic and philosophical point of view, this film brings a fresh perspective on the Latin American diaspora in Europe.
Interview with Mariana Machado
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is Mariana Machado and I am a film director. I was born in the southeast part of Brazil, in the city of Belo Horizonte. For seven years, I’ve been working on audiovisual projects, directing short films, music videos and some video art. Last year, I moved to Brussels to start a Master in Film Directing at the Luca School of Arts. And now I am working on my first fiction film Candela.
Can you tell me what Candela is about?
This film is about three young Latin American immigrants in Brussels who love each other. The film follows their journey through Brussels during one single day. It portrays the people they meet along the way as well as the city itself. The capital really is the fourth protagonist in this narrative.
In addition, the film makes a case for the figure of migrants as a powerful creative subjective force instead of just a fragile figure. The film will not focus on struggle but on agency. I am interested in the characters’ dreams about their future and in the particular worlds they invent when they are together. Of course, they have a political vulnerability that stems from not being perceived as ‘from here’ and sometimes even no longer ‘from there’. Yet, they also carry with them the spark of a disruptive strength that can reveal “here” and “there” as violent and excluding terms.
Regarding what I mentioned before, I see the strong creative force in people who migrate, because wherever we go, we will always carry our cultural background with us. Thus, migrants become a kind of complex mosaic of completely different cultural experiences that overlap in one body and one space. This creates a being who feels and thinks “in between two worlds”, and this seems kind of beautifully supernatural, no? As a Latin American person living in Europe, I completely relate to this feeling, that is guiding me in creating the imagery of the film. For instance, I am thinking about working with magic realism.
© Steven Heyvaert
© Steven Heyvaert
Where does the inspiration for the film come from?
It comes from observing life in Brussels, its characters, streets and sometimes its beautiful weirdness. So in general, it comes from the images and stories I’ve been collecting during my stay in this capital. I always carry notebooks with me, everywhere I go. Sometimes, I even pay attention to conversations that Portuguese or Spanish speakers are having in the metros and trams. And I already witnessed super interesting ones that helped me to nourish this film. I like to fictionalize some situations I am witnessing on the streets here day in, day out. That is to say, the time I spent walking around the city, observing, talking to strangers, talking to friends, partying or going to cafés is equally important to my time actively writing this film.
I love Brussels, it is a lively and interesting capital. But I don't love the statues of colonizers that are persistently on display in the streets. Another inspiration for this film equally comes from some decolonial dreams I had at night since I arrived in Brussels.
Can you tell me about your trajectory as a filmmaker?
I come from a family of biologists and when I was a child, my father taught me how to take pictures with an analog camera. So when I was traveling in nature with my father, we were always photographing landscapes. I soon discovered that I actually preferred to take pictures of people because I was interested in their personal stories and inner landscapes. My need to fuse images and stories led me to encounter cinema.
My first audiovisual work was made seven years ago; an art video shot in the Atacama desert in Chile titled Maps of Absence. After that, I directed some experimental films and more video art. Most of these works have an intimate nature, often using my own voice-over on the soundtrack to talk about personal experiences or thoughts.
My first short documentary was about my grandfather. This film is entitled Ângelo and it is a multifaceted film portrait of him. It was made as a collection of different moments we spent together while we were creating this film. I was happy that it was well received, as it was screened in several festivals and won some prizes.
After Ângelo I started another documentary film entitled: Maxita: The Earth Eaters, which I co-directed with the Anthropologist Ana Maria Machado. We recorded this film in the Amazon and Minas Gerais. The protagonists of the film are Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Ailton Krenak, two of the most important indigenous leaders and thinkers in Brazil today who inspire me a lot. Maxita will be released next year, right after Candela.
What does your art stand for?
I will reply to this question with an excerpt of Brazilian music, the name of the music is Tô, by the brilliant composer Tom Zé. He was influential in the Brazilian ‘Tropicália’ movement of the 1960s. The English translation of an excerpt of this song would be:
"I'm explaining to confuse you. I'm confusing you to enlighten you. I'm enlightened so that I can blind you and I'm becoming blind so that I can guide you".
These lyrics offer a funny experiment of inverting gazes, and I try to do the same in my work. I like the idea of de-naturalizing the way we look at our surroundings. My art stands as a reminder (or an affirmation) that there are thousand different ways of being in this world and different ways of interpreting it, and this is where true richness resides. This explains why my favourite film directors come from completely different places. On the other hand, I am also super inspired by the cultural, imaginative and intellectual richness of my continent, especially in its roots. In my films, these roots inspire me to approach themes like the relationship with time, nature, dreams, love and public spaces.
Besides, my art is aware of living in a space mediated by a Western culture that must be seen critically. The necessity of creating counter-histories works as a direction to my work, inspired by the urge to recreate or invent other futures. Somehow, all my characters embody this impulse for themselves or for the world in a broader sense. Those feelings can be placed in a house, like my grandfather’s house; or in a city, like Brussels; or inside the ‘heart’ of this world, like in the Amazon forest.
Why did you sign up for Next Generation, Please! ?
I applied for NGP because Candela is not just my story and I am not the only young filmmaker creating fiction from personal experiences. I believe I am part of a young generation of people who are questioning things in this world and making art is a response to our frustrations, anger, needs, desires, hopes and dreams. Cinema is my faithful ally in doing so and I am super glad to be part of the Next Generation, Please! this year.
