Kassandra, a graphic novel

Soon, we will release the Kassandra graphic novel version! Yes, our heroine will star a graphic novel with art and story signed by the writer of the film, Roger Monteiro.

The idea has been developed since last year. Roger (who is also a visual artist) did the project autonomously. He even admits that it was a way to keep connected to the character for some time more. "It's easy to become attached to her, especially when you have a predisposition to be interested in crazy and mean girls in black and white," he says.

The graphic novel is called Kassandra, Verses of Silence and Madness and attempts to retell the story from the point of view of the character. The distinction begins with the visual: the short is in black and white, but the comic book will be colorized. "No realistic colors, but something of dream, almost lysergic" says Roger. Furthermore, Kassandra also now expresses herself orally, at least in text. "We actually have access to character thoughts, which are presented in verse, rhyming, which cause them to generate a stream of consciousness."

Wanna see some? Here it goes (in portuguese):

About the cast: Leandro Lefa

He’s the last one on the presentations. Doesn’t mean he’s less important: Leando Lefa plays one of the main characters in Kassandra, a weird and nameless neighbor which represents a threat to the leading character. However, the actor was the last one to be confirmed in the movie.

According to director Ulisses Costa, the difficulty was to find someone different from the other men in the cast. “Roger Monteiro, the writer, imagined someone older and possibly ‘bigger’”, he remembers. “But I was really afraid that the character was confused with the Big Man”.

Ulisses chose Leando Lefa also because their long friendship. He was one of the actors of  The Screamer (watch it with english subtitles), the director’s first short movie. The promise that they would work together again stood and more than one project was thought to continue the partnership, but none worked out. Another point well considered about Lefa was the fact that he already had done a horror movie – played a role in the almost legendary Beyond the Grave, a zombie movie shooted in Porto Alegre, never released commercially.

The construction of the character had to be really specific. Even with a tight schedule, Lefa was able to email pictures to the crew, showing some ideas of costume, make up, facial and body expression (pic). “Despite the lack of time to rehearse the way we did with Renata, for example, Lefa’s dedication was essential to make the character as ready as it was in the day of shooting”, tells the director.

“Ulisses’ merit: with intelligence and sensibility, he knows exactly how to say what he wants and then things just flow”, says the actor. “All I needed was the script, one coffee and three minutes of improvisation exercise where enough for me to feel completely safe and comfortable with my character and the whole crew, particularly with the rest of the cast.”

Coffee? Yep: on his first scenes, Lefa needed to look dirty. Art director Ana Gusson, suggested that a shirt was stained with coffee, to make the filthy look on the black and white photography. After that, the actor wore a wet shirt with a strong smell of coffee for several hours, what resulted in many jokes from Renata Stein.

About working in more than one horror movie, Leandro says: “I wanted to create a guy without deepness, driven by sex, who thinks is fun being grouse and repulsive. It’s interesting that in Beyond the Grave I also played a man intellectually limited and who didn’t know how to act like a person, but the characters are completely different”.

Kassandra's Tarot

One of the main elements in Kassandra is the tarot cards. Actually, the cards are the film’s great mystery: everyday, a new card appears mysteriously inside Kassandra’s apartment. 

Director Ulisses of the Motta Costa says: “The tarot cards have something puzzling in its image. Most of the people do not know its esoteric meaning but they search in it at least a suggestion of some occult meaning to be disclosed. Therefore, they are part of what is hidden in the universe of Kassandra". 

Although the tarot don’t have esoteric function in the narrative, the scriptwriter Roger Monteiro decided to respect the meaning given traditionally to each card, relating it with specific moments of the film and with the character’s state of mind.

Nosferatu and Snow White

Hello, Ulisses da Motta Costa here again.

References are essential elements when you are making a film. The references help to create narrative, visual, acting and sound conceptions. Cast and crew debate references all the time.

But sometimes, a reference comes in a subjective manner, because it’s already within the project. That’s what happened to Kassandra.

When we were going for the second draft of the screenplay, writter Roger Monteiro and me discussed the need for a good character presentation for Kassandra. Roger came up with a good Idea, involving her and a bird. 

As soon as I read the new scene, I remebered Nosferatu (1922), a horror expressionist classic. Not because of the movie itself, but because of the presentation of the female character, played by Greta Schröder. Our scene was kind of a distant echo of Nosferatu.

“Such a great reference”, I thoght. I called Roger on Facebook chat:

Me: Dude, I really liked Kassandra’s introduction. Reproduces the heroin's trajetory in Nosferatu. It is coincidence or inspiration?

Roger: No. It came from Snow White.

Me: The scene just became even BETTER.

Unbelievable how things live in our cultural unconsciousness. I was exulting with the unexpected relation between two cinema classics. So pretentious from our part. I love  both movies and I’d always though that Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1938) was kind of a horror movie. It’s dark and sinister -- the evil queen metamorphosis is just horrible.

Anyway, we become sure that we’re in the right track when the references come up naturally.