From a total of ten, I am the sixth son of a watchmaker called João Inácio Filho and a housewife called Laura Maria Inácio. I was born in Bonito, a city in the interior of Pernambuco, Brazil, on the 17th day of August 1961. I remember just a few things since I was born until I was eight years. Between which is the fact that I dreamed about being two things: soldier and scientist. Soldier because I wanted to be like my older brother. Scientist however must have been because he gave me a mini-lab (called “Little scientist”) as a gift, with which I spent hours and hours mixing the craziest solutions. I think it was this that awoke in me a investigative instinct. Specially, I was intrigued about how those people on TV and on the cinema could move. Look at this picture:
Well, now that you stopped laughing, pay attention to the 3 these three things so that you
can see how far I went trying to solve this enigma:
1 – I cut the TV antena wire and put it inside the coffee filter. What a shame, nothing came
out of the cable. No, the little men from TV weren’t inside the filter, only the rest of the coffee;
2 – There were slits on the side of the television to dissipate the heat (the valves always
became very hot). Since the little men didn’t came from the antenna wire, “maybe they were
inserted in the TV”, I thought. I cut some pieces of magazines and out them inside the slits…
it wasn’t successful, and the smoke alerted my mother who really didn’t like my experiences.
I remember that very well, my buttocks heated as the TV valves.
What about item ? Imagination. I found out that this was the safest method (and the less
painful) to solve the typical dilemmas of that age.
But one day entered my life a unique fella, a mere Geography teacher, whose name was “José the Telegrapher”, and a new world appeared to me. He showed me that a film stock could be projected to a wall to be filled with colours in the imaginations on many. My teacher made to me what we today would call a “slide projector”, but a really rudimentar one. A wooden box with a support with a hole in the middle, where I put the pieces of “tape”, one light bulb at one end and a hole in the other extremity. The lens? Oh, yes, a light bulb full of water. Fortunately, I studied with and was a friend of José Carlos, son of the owner of the town’s only cinema, where all the morning screenings were interrupted by the breaking of the film (they were projected in Bonito only after being projected all over the world). I exchanged with this friend the rests of the film tapes with little glass pieces that my father threw away when he fixed the watches of his clients. José Carlos wanted the objects because they made perfect players for his button football team, and I needed the images to my own cinema screenings… perfect mix! That was it, I only needed to gather some friend in my house. I charged for the screening (cinema is money!). Then we built stories from the slides that were randomly projected. And that way I learned to write scripts.
The time went on and little by little, what one day had been child’s play, filmmaking, because of my publicity studies, became more serious. Like in a move, lets jump to 1998 – by reading other sections of this site you will understand everything that happened at this time. While I was in College studying publicity there was a art exhibition. I also was studying computer graphics and editing, so I ventured to produce my first movie: Delírios Trêmulos de um Hebreu Nordestino [Trembling hallucinations of a Northeastern Hebrew]. It was beyond experimental, but it managed to be exhibited in another College, CEUB, also in Brasilia. Still in my college, in 2001, together with Christian Dantas, Karina Lobo e Wilson albuquerque,
we produced the documentary O Resto do Mundo [The rest of the world].
In 2003, I went abroad to study the english language in the other side of the world, in
Auckland, New Zealand, and there something happened that changed all my life. I became a great friend of the family that received me and they love films as much as me. Suze Crozier, the housewife, knew the vice-rector of the University of Auckland, in which there was a trendy cinema course because of the film The Lord of The Rings, which had been release at that time. On those days, everybody only talked about the success of the new zealander director Peter Jackson. One day, without pretension, I commented that I had thought on being a filmmaker, and that I had produced short films, but I realized that the time for me had already passed. She asked me if had interest in talking with that friend of hers, and asked me a little résumé with all my achievements. I thought that it would be a great opportunity to
train my English. I was surprised when I heard she saying something like “wow, you are talented! You already did this all with your age? We want to help you to study here.” When I answered that I felt a bit old to think about filmmaking professionally, quickly she said “João, look how many great filmmakers only flourished after their 60s.” Ironic, and I thought I was old, she said I, that was 41, was still a baby crawling. As an act of courage I changed my life, but I didn’t throw away my on career insanely.Thus, I progressed in the company in which I
worked, studying simultaneously… and studying very hard. Any opportunity I had, I went to São Paulo to get classes on screenwriting, computer graphics, art direction, and so on. Since I started, I never stopped. From the cinema field, the only thing I haven’t studied is makeup (already scheduled). I realized if that was going to be my occupation, I had to at least understand all the steps of production to know how to speak properly with the professionals involved in the film. I couldn’t have had a better idea. Of course, now, full of assurance and the good old courage, I started to shot films without stop. Still in NZ, I met the reporter Gisah Batista and together we made the documentary Fé & Fama [Faith and fame], about the life of the kiwi rugby player Ali Lauit’ti. You see how things happen… I think this was the highpoint of my career as a amateur filmmaker. By divine providence I met a genius, Tony Guiava, that introduced me to this player (I didn’t realized that in that place he was like
a Zico, or a Neymar). Since I had nothing to lose and I needed material for the programme Janela para a Vida [Window to life] that I already directed (see the Audiovisual area here in the site), even without knowing about his fame, I asked Tony if we could make a documentary on the life of the player and he accepted it. So me and Gisah went to interview Ali Lauit’iti and the other players… on the same day together with press from all over the world. Just imagine: all those dudes with the best equipments and us with a DIgital 8, a crippled tripod, a barely functional handheld microphone and a headphone that only worked on one side. A good laugh. But the documentary got made and, surprisingly, it was the first documentary about such famous player. There were tons of articles on sports news, but a documentary, even though rudientar, it was the first one. When I concluded it I send a cope to Helen Clark the Prime Minister of New Zealand at the time, from whom I received a letter of gratitude, thanking my attitude and initiative. Granted the conditions, that was not my best work, but it was the I could have done.
Back in Brazil, as I had decided to change career, I needed to achieve more. I produced a short movie, Monólogo de um pescador [Monologues of a fisherman], and for it I got the award of the Special Jury in the VII Festicurtas, in Brasilia, promoted by the Baptist Church.
The programme Janela para a Vida demanded that I had material so in 2006 I produced and directed the medium length documentary Sal da Terra [Salt of the earth], about the history of a homonymous group. In 2008 I shot another mid-length documentary Navegando nas Águas de Deus [Sailing in God’s waters]. This same Year I also produced the mig-length documentary Naoum and in 2007 I was invited to produce a DVD for the musical group Expresso Luz , that at the time commemorating 20 years of existence. Oh, and between all of this I produced the short length documentaries tributo de Gratidão [Tribute of gratitude], Instituto Reciclando Sons [Recycling sounds institute] and the videoclip Palavras que amparam to the musician Edilênio Souza. I received a unrefusable offer in 2010, to shot the DVD of the 25 years anniversary of Banda Raízes. To me the hardest part was detach my fan admiration from the professional part. This work not only allowed me to record the story of one of the main bands of Brazil, but also, in a certain way, allowed me to remember part of my own story, because I was present in most part of the life of the band. The DVD also included the first screenplay I made to a animation (Sl 148) that I produced with the animator Lemuel Massuia.
The productions and ideas were intensifying themselves and cinema was what occupied my mind. Because of that, I decided to breath new air. In 2010 I stopped my career as an executive at the company in which I worked and started my own film production company, Imaginação Filmes e Artes Audiovisuais . I needed to establish my self as an filmmaker, so I made my highest bet. Immediately I started producing my first full length that was born in 2012. The result was better than I expected. Beside winning a prize as honourable mention in the Curta Amazonia and as best full length documentary in Vercine, the film Truks was wide screened in festivals in Brazil and in many other parts of the world. It was the only brazilian movie exhibited in a traditional festival in Greece, was part of festivals in Switzerland, Colombia, Uruguai and China, and also in many other festivals in Brazil. With Truks I was invited to go to China and to participate in the DocBrazil Festival, in which I also had the chance to give a workshop about making documentaries: Documentário – da criação à produção.
Still in China, by divine grace, I met a brazilian musical group called Soul Mundo that was travelling to Xanghai. Everything went well and I produced a video clip of them in the fifth wonder of the world, the Great Wall of China. It was nice seeing chinese people admiring brazilians playing samba ( https://vimeo.com/79919376 ).
To complete this good fase, besides innumerous minor projects, I also produced a fictional short As luzes de Benjela [The Benjela lights], that in the next year won a prize of best short in the festival Curta Caxias, in Rio de Janeiro.
As it wasn’t enough, while I was doing all of this I got time to produce three webseries to the WWF-Brasil ( #Somosamazonia, Histórias do Pacto e Moradores da Floresta ) and the documentary Chico Mendes – um legado a defender. with participation of the actress Lucélia Santos. I can’t say that it was enough, because all the engines are still working, as long as God permits.
Movies
Click on the images to see the sites of my movies:
