Multi Solo, Tetem, Enschede

By Way of Other Directions

Film, 18 min, 2018

Image, text, editing and voice-over: Lou Mouw Portuguese translation and voice-over: Johanna Nuber. Sound: Monty Mouw Based on the text "A Cemetery of Hope" by Benjamin Moser, with material from Michel Foucault, Clarice Lispector and Joaquim Pedro de Andrade

In the 1950s Brazil decided to build a new capital, Brasília, in the middle of the country. Moving the government inland, away from the old colonial cities on the coast, was meant to open a modern Brazil. Four years after the city was finished, a military regime took power and used the isolated capital to stage its own authority.

The film looks at how the plan of Brasília helped turn “the capital of hope” into the seat of a dictatorship, and at what a modernist city does to the people who live in it. In the plan, bodies are parts of a machine, not individuals.

The film builds its picture of the city from maps, Google Earth, found footage and handheld material shot in Brasília. It ends with a dedication to the workers who built the capital, and their families.

Lúcio Costa's plan of Brasília drawn over the lights of the city at night — Film still

Sketches for Brasília spread on a table, a magnifying glass over a photograph of a figure on a bridge — Film still

Royal palms in silhouette against the evening sky in Brasília, government buildings behind — Film still

A hand turns the page of a book to a black and white photograph of a reclining nude — Film still

Black and white photograph looking up between the twin towers of the National Congress in Brasília — Film still

Aerial photographs of early Brasília and a photograph of a market stall, laid around a sketch of the city plan — Film still

A person crouches in the shadow of the curved concrete ring of the National Museum in Brasília — Film still

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