Shortly before his death in February 2014, Eduardo Coutinho shot his last film: A compilation of one to one conversations with deprived high school students from Rio de Janeiro who talked about their lives and dreams. During the shooting, Coutinho wasn’t happy. What he wanted to do originally was to explore the origins of speech through interviews with young children. He was convinced that only children could express freely through words not yet contaminated by form or any other sort of restriction, but he could only get permission to shoot with youngsters, hence his frustration.

The film begins with Coutinho showing his dissatisfaction and reflecting about filmmaking and the crisis he was going through. The device that follows is simple: A room, a chair occupied by the director, a chair that fills and empties every time a youngster enters and leaves the scene, a door that opens and closes; a conversation between an elderly filmmaker and a young character who meet for the first time.

Coutinho was obsessed with memory and the idea that only the passage of time can enhance one’s account of the past: “The time remembered is always richer than the time lived”, he used to say. He was not keen to accept that youth could have so many remarkable things to tell. Fortunately for the audience, this wonderful group of characters proved the opposite. Last Conversations is simple and yet a monumental piece. Perhaps more than any other of Coutinho’s films, it tells the story of an abandoned country, a land of young people who grow up in families fragmented by violence, discrimination, sexual abuse, racism and bullying. Nevertheless, they are ready to fight for a better future, to dream, to sing, to love, to laugh out loud, to sit in front of the camera and to read their own pieces of poetry.

María Campaña Ramia  

After the screening, film programmer and documentary filmmaker María Campaña Ramia will lead a conversation with Carlos Gutiérrez.

This event is made possible by VideoFilmes. We are grateful to them for their support!

María Campaña Ramia is an Ecuadorian film programmer and documentary filmmaker. She holds a M.A. in Documentary Filmmaking from the University of Strasbourg, in France. She was the Artistic Director of the International Documentary Film Festival Encuentros del Otro Cine – EDOC, in Ecuador, and is now one of their board members. She programs for both Ambulante (Mexico) and EDOC. In 2012 she co-edited the book El Otro Cine de Eduardo Coutinho and received a fellowship from the Flaherty Seminar. In 2015 she directed the short film Derivadas. María has programmed showcases and festivals in Ecuador, Brazil and Colombia, and has widely studied the cinema of Coutinho. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.

Carlos A. Gutiérrez is co-founder and executive director of Cinema Tropical, the New York-based media arts non-profit organization that is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. As a guest curator, he has presented several film/video series at different cultural institutions, including The Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, BAMcinématek, Anthology Film Archives, and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He co-curated the 53rd edition of the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, and is co-director of the Tucson Cine Mexico festival in Arizona. He is a contributing editor to BOMB Magazine, and has served as a member of the jury and panelist for various film festivals and funds including the Morelia Film Festival,the Margaret Mead Film Festival, SANFIC, DocsMX, the Sundance Documentary Fund, the Tribeca Film Institute’s Latin American Media Arts Fund, and the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.