Introduction

         The silent movies began as a need not as a style. The technical impossibility to synchronize sound and image made the filmmakers from early century to use only images to tell their stories. With no dialogues, many visual forms were made to lead the audience to a visual experience where poetry blended with art to create a new art expression. The experience of those first visual poets brought a solid artistic foundation to the movies, with gestures, moves, angles and perspectives. Even after the sound was added to the cinema, those basic rudiments remained as a solid lesson to be followed.
         A century later with the over exposition of images and sounds hitting our retina every second, return to the very beginning of the movies can be healthy “ Margarette’s Feast” is a silent movie exactly as the ones from early century made a century later, bringing to the audience an old visual expression which had evolved to be one of the most important way of human expression in the twentieth century.
         Films became a very often expression to the understanding of the Human nature.
         The use of a prime form of cinema on a contemporary background from the South of Brazil brought to this film the same universal characteristics as the silent movies from the last century.

Synopsis

         Pedro has a dream: to give her wife Margarette a big birthday party. He doesn’t care about how far is their house from the city, the recent note about his lay off or how difficult is to receive his pension fund. Nothing else matters but his dream. He is tenacious and capable of cross any barrier to make it come true. Even when it seems impossible to do it, he uses his fantasy to reach the unreachable.
         In his journey, Pedro meets many characters representing the Brazilian people and its society. His dream came true, but in the end an unpleasant surprise awaits him. The tough reality strikes him. “Margarette’s Feast” summarizes the dreams and disappointments from an entire people. The search for happiness at least for one night!
         With humor, introducing characters easily found in the Brazilian daily life, is a movie when the surreal portraits the cruel reality that many times insists to hide itself.

Renato Falcão, Director

         Was Born in Passo Fundo, South of Brazil. Having shot more than 20 short films, documentaries, television miniseries, music videos, and three feature films, Renato Falcão has won numerous awards for his work at film festivals around the world. His first short film, "Presage", won four international festival awards and his 1997 short "Dearly Beloved", for which he served as cinematographer, received the Best Short Film Award at Houston Worldfest. It was produced by The Shooting Gallery and starred Eric Stoltz. Falcão has also served as cinematographer for the critically acclaimed feature "Neptune's Rocking Horse" and has attended workshops with well-known directors of photography such as Laszlo Kovacs A.S.C, Sol Negrin A.S.C, and the Oscar winning Richard Shore A.S.C. In Margarette’s Feast he is the Screenwriter, Cinematographer, Editor, Director and Producer.

Hique Gomez

         Hique Gomez was born in Porto Alegre (South of Brazil ) in 1959. When he was fifteen, he became a professional musician and later began to study classical guitar, orchestration, arrangements and violin.
         A self-educated pianist, Hique performed with many musicians. In 1984 he met Nico Nicolaiewsky and they created as a duet a very successful musical comedy called "Tangos e Tragedias" which they have toured in Basil, Latin America, Spain and Portugal. Hique has also many notable TV appearances as a guest on the best-viewed Brazilian talk shows.
         Multi-instrumentalist strongly influenced by popular culture and Brazilian folklore he has developed a very original work, as an actor and a musician mixing his characters with his musical arrangements and orchestrations. In Margarette’s Feast, he plays the main character “ the lunatic Pedro” and he also composed and produced most of the soundtrack. www.hiquegomez.com.br

Ilana Kaplan

         Was born in Porto Alegre – South of Brazil. Started her acting career at 20 years old, mainly in comedies, winning several awards in this particular category. Ilana has been working with very important directors such as Gerald Thomas, Guel Arraes, João Falcão, Paulo Autran and Elias Andreato. Currently, she has been performing in several television comedies for the most important Brazilian networks. Actually, she is part of the cast of the most successful Brazilian stand-up comedy “Terça Insana” (Insane Tuesday). In Margarette’s Feast she plays Margarette, married to Pedro.

Carmen Silva

         Is one of the most talented Brazilian actress. Born Maria Amália Feijó in 1916 in Pelotas, South of Brazil. At 86 years old she has such enthusiasm and joy that surprises all the young people on the set. Carmem has been acting since the Brazilian Radio Golden Age and had performed in over fifteen movies, short films and in several soap operas, winning many important awards. In Margarette’s Feast she plays Margarette’s mother, and is the only one who realizes that his son –in-law Pedro is a delusional dreamer. In this particular movie she gives an extremely moving and powerful performance.

Music

         MP3! This was the program used by Hique Gomez and director Renato Falcão for a whole year, the time it took to compose and to edit the movie. As Hique lives in Porto Alegre and Renato in N.Y., each layout sequence was send by using MP3, followed by long conversations by phone and e-mail. Most of the soundtrack was edited and recorded at “Pop Club Studios”. The movie length is 80 minutes, bringing the music made in Porto Alegre since the beginning of the twentieth century, such as the tracks extracted from the cd “Origins –A Música de Porto Alegre”, played brilliantly by The Geriatric Orchestra, and also Hique Gomez compositions like the movie’s main theme “ The Lunatic Theme”, orchestrated by Daniel Wolf. Last but not least, we have the very talented Ulbra’s Chamber Orchestra, Unisinos’ Orchestra and the amazing Argentinean Saxophone Quartet “Quatro Vientos.”

Crew

Director - Renato Falcão
Executive Producer- Regina Datria
Music- Hique Gomez
Art Director - Rodrigo Lopez
Casting Director- Airton Tomazzoni
Cinematographer Editing -Renato Falcão
Unit Production Manager- Dimitre Lucho
Costumes- Viviane Gil
Make-up - Isis Medeiros
Light Designer for the church scene- Heloiza Averbuck
Panels Painter- Adalberto Almeida
Art Director’s- Assistant Rafael Baldi
Set Producer (scene objects)- Rochelle Zaggo
Set Producer (food)- Alessandra Cunha
Costumes’ assistant- Andréia Venzon

Set Technicians:
Altair Claro
Jorge Claro
Gerônimo Oliveira

Production Assistant:
Márcio Gonçalves
Gabriel Atanazio
Rafael Rezende
Carla Lavratti

Still Photographers  - Cristina Lima and Myra Gonçalves
Editing Supervision -Robert Tate
Driver- Otávio “Ceará” Araújo
Chef - D. Maria

Lighting Equipment-  Video Produções - Porto Alegre
Laboratório- DuArt - NYC
Ampliação para 35mm- Alpha Cine Labs - Seattle
Transcrição de som- Magno Sound and Video - NYC
Soundtrack Recording- Pop Club Produções Sonoras
Recording and Mixing - Edu Coelho and Gabriel Joner
Additional Recording- Marcelo Sfoggia
Mastering- Marcos Abreu

Montagem de negativo- Marcos Abreu
Credits- Sal Mallimo
Filme Negativo e Reverso- Eastman Kodak S-16mm
Camera- Aaton S16mm
Montagem- Avid MCXpress @ filmik
Transferencia de vídeo para filme- Film East - NYC

Cena adicional- Fábrica Wrightwood Labs