The movie inside the movie

A simple detail on Kassandra’s script ended up creating a whole new monster, with the biggest proportions possible. It was right there, in Roger Monteiro’s script, in the scene 7: the neighbor, played by Leandro Lefa, is in front of the TC watching a “porn movie of questionable taste”.

We could have simply hided the TV or used any erotic vídeo. But director Ulisses da Motta Costa decided to shoot some erotic scenes – but no hardcore, changing a bit the original concept, without sex.

“I took as reference the ‘Pornochanchada’, a popular Brazilian genre from late 70’s, early 80’s, that used to mix comedy, some action and plenty of nudity and, sometimes, even real sex”, explains Ulisses. “And anyways, we couldn’t make someone go through any embarrassment, but we could make it all funny. That’s why I invited a longtime friend, Elena Meneghetti, who, when we were in college, made a class work dressed as a dominatrix. She’s really humorous, perfect for what we needed.”

A frame from the original material

The scenes that will be used on Kassandra were shooted in a couple hours on Elena’s house. Maico Silveira made a small part as the man who is seduced by Elena. The crew and cast had such fun in the shooting that when the producer Ramona Barcellos called to know if everything was ok, all she heard was laughter.

The crew was improvised: besides Ulisses directing, the producer Roberto Coutinho made the cinematographt, the publicist Daniel Coutinho was the set producer, the composer Chico Pereira edited the video. The only one on her function was the costume designer Giulia De Cesero, who also made art direction.

In no time, what was to be a small scene turned into a “bigger project”: a fake trailer of a Pornochanchada set in Porto Alegre (usually, those genre was made in Rio de Janeiro or in São Paulo). Not just that: even artistic pseudonyms are being thought to make the 70s vibe even more alive. Not counting, obviously, more characters and scenes.

“I got why people used to make Pornochanchadas at that time: it’s so much fun, even thou the movies were awful”, says Roberto Coutinho. “It´s a challenge to make something purposely poorly made”, Ulisses states. “That’s why the improvised crew was essential for the bad visual results.” Chico Pereira, responsible for editing the little “treasure” got the difficulty. “I was editing right the scenes when I thought: no, I have to unlearn everything I know”, tells him.

New scenes will be made on the breaks of Kassandra’s shooting. Wait for it!

About the cast: Luis Franke

 

Somewhen, during the footage of Kassandra, the following dialogue happened between actor Luis Franke and director Ulisses da Motta Costa:

Ulisses: You do know I’m a nonsense director, don’t you?

Luis: No. You have some sense. Some.

A few minutes later:

Ulisses: Luisão, do you know why I’m a nonsense director?

Luis: Why?

Ulisses: Because only a nonsense person would call an actor two times winner of the Açorianos Award to play a character that… doesn’t speak.

Luis Franke is the mysterious Big Man: a man with huge proportions, whose only purpose is a mystery to the main character, once he usually appears as a threat. “Kassandra is a walk through the real and the imagination, the lucidity and madness, the fight and the encounter with our real ‘me’”, defines the actor.

 

During the rehearsals, Luis was worried discussing the meaning of each character and their actions along the narrative. He wanted to know the role of the Big Man related to Kassandra: “I think my character represents the sleeping courage in her, which will be awake whenever she needs”, said.

Wanted by cinema, publicity, television and, of course, theater, Luisão won one Açoriano Award (a theater award in Brazil) for his work on the play O Sobrado – as a supporting actor – and another, for best actor, in an adaptation of Heinrich von Kleist’s The Broken Jug. 

He praises the whole cast and crew: “I have the biggest pleasure on being in the cast of Kassandra. The high level crew, coordinated by the great Ulisses Costa, who directed the process beautifully, allowed all the actors to connect with their characters and reach the deepest point of their minds. Acting with the young Renata Stein and my friends Maico Silveira and Leandro Lefa was, more than anything, an honor”.

Making of Kassandra - 5 - when a cell phone rings

We talked about Maico Silveira's participation recently, so let's check one of the rehearsals with him and leading actress Renata Stein. That's until someone's phone starts to ring.

And you know: never let yout cell phone ring when an actor ir performing (video in portuguese)...

About the cast: Maico Silveira

We already talked about Renata Stein, the leading actress of Kassandra. Now, it’s time to talk about the other cast members. One of them is Maico Silveira, who plays the therapist that takes care of Kassandra.

Maico is a brazilian actor who’ve been in France and Spain. Despite his acting in several short and feature films, he usually prefers the stage. Or whatever can be turned into a stage: his monologue O dia em que aprendi a dizer não (The day I learnt how to say no, in english) requires nothing more than a small room to be performed.

Now you may be questioning yourself: how did a theater actor, used to the stage, got in this project? Maico is an old friend of director Ulisses da Motta Costa and of most of Kassandra’s crew (like composer Chico Pereira and producer Roberto Coutinho). The actor worked on their first short movie ever, O Gritador (The Screamer, in english - watch it with english subtitles), back in 2006. By then, Maico auditioned for three different characters and played them all good – which made the director say: “This guy has to be in the movie. I don’t know what he’ll play, but he IS in the movie”.

In Kassandra, Maico has a small participation. His presence, however, was essential to bring to debate the concepts of acting and to develop the work of preparation and rehearsals. Being a theater thinker, he used to discuss different ideas of acting with Ulisses, differing the stage acting and the work in front of the cameras.

 “At a certain point, we talked about Hitchcock, who said that was essential that, on suspense, the actor could play neutral eyes, so the director could build in the editing the meaning he wanted the character to have” , says Ulisses. “Maico, then, started to exercise this neutrality, playing really soft nuances of intention in some chosen moments. “This level of subtlety is pretty hard to reach”.

“At the rehearsals’ beginning I told Ulisses about some acting habits and asked him to don’t let me do those on the film”, the actor says. “I think he made a great work guiding us in a very subtle way to the whole meaning of the movie. No one had ever act in a suspense film and the suspense itself teach us a lot about acting in movies.”

Maico also appears on the “movie inside the movie” in Kassandra. But that’s another post.