The Absence that Moves us

A film by Christiane Jatahy

CINEMA SÃO JORGE
20th – 21st November
schedule to be confirmed

The Absence that Moves us started out as a stage play. From 2005 to 2009, the performance had a cast on stage that prepared dinner and waited for a guest, talking to the public, often blurring the lines between interpretation, reality and fiction. The action in the play takes place in real time.
In 2008, on the night before Christmas Eve – from the evening of the 23rd of December to the morning of the 24th – a Christmas party amongst close friends was filmed, in which memories and revelations surface. The 13 hours of recording resulted in 39 hours of raw footage. Over the course of a year, Christiane Jatahy studied, edited and cut the scenes second by second to transform these 39 hours into two continuous hours, without obvious time lapses, so that the viewer thinks that what happened that night is exactly what they are seeing. The filming was continuous, and the film appears to be a smooth sequence, but in reality, it is a big patchwork of separate pieces stitched together to recreate an idea of reality. An exercise of folding over and over, where not all is truly as it seems.
The film appeared in various international festivals and premièred in Brazilian cinemas in 2011. The public response to the author’s experimental film was impressive. More than 20,000 people went to see it during the 11 weeks it was in the box office.

Ten conditions were established for filming:
1. Five actors
2. One single set
3. Thirteen hours of continuous filming
4. Three simultaneous cameras
5. The actors are directed during filming via text messages
6. The actors are waiting for a person who they don’t know will ever arrive
7. The actors follow a script, but don’t know each other’s lines
8. They genuinely eat, cook and drink
9. Some stories are real, others are invented
10. Whatever happens, nobody can leave

With Cristina Amadeo, Daniela Fortes, Marina Vianna, Kiko Mascarenhas and Pedro Brício
Director of photography: Walter Carvalho; Art director: Marcelo Lipiani; Sound directors: Leandro Lima and Marcel Costa; Cameras: Lula Carvalho, David Pacheco, Guga Millet and João Atala; Sound design: Leandro Lima; Original soundtrack: Lucas Marcier, Rodrigo Marçal and Luciano Correa; Image editing: Sergio Meckler and Christiane Jatahy; Mixing: Denílson Campos; Post-production: Thiago Arakilian and Raissa Albuquerque; Executive producer: Gabriela Weeks; Producers: Flavio Ramos Tambellini and Christiane Jatahy

Première: Rio Festival 2010.
Circuit: Room screening (2012) in several Brazilian cities, including in Rio de Janeiro; Tiradentes Festival (Brazil), Sao Paulo International Film Festival (Brazil), Lisbon, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Paris and London.