The Rio Critics Project 2019

Talent Press Rio 2019

Pedro Butcher (Coordinator)
A journalist and film critic, Pedro Butcher has worked for leading Brazilian newspapers and is now a freelance contributor to Valor Econômico. From September 2017 to July 2018, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, researching the distribution of American films in Brazil from 1910 until 1925. Since 2016, he has coordinated the Talent Press Rio, at the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, aimed at emerging Portuguese-speaking film critics.

Kênia Freitas (Mentor)

Film teacher, critic and curator, Kênia Freitas researches Afrofuturism and Black Cinema. Postdoctoral student (CAPES / PNPD) in Communication at UNESP, she has a PhD in Communication and Culture from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. She curated the film series “Afrofuturismo: cinema and music in an intergalactic diaspora”, “The magic of black women” and “Black directors in Brazilian cinema”. She writes reviews for “Multiplot!” and integrates Elviras – Collective of Women Film Critics.

Victor Guimarães (Mentor)

Film critic, curator and teacher, is a collaborator of online magazine Cinética and the portal Con Los Ojos Abiertos. Victor also wrote for publications such as Senses of Cinema, Kinoscope, Desistfilm, La Vida Útil and La Furia Umana. He was a professor at UNA University Center, Positivo University and Vila das Artes. As a curator, his work includes film series such as Saboteurs of the Industry (2014), Argentina Rebelde (2015), Anachronias (2017) and Brasil 68 (2018). Has a PhD in Social Communication from UFMG.

TALENTS

Adriano Garrett

Journalist, film critic and researcher, Adriano Garret is the founder of Cine Festivais, a website in which he conducts interviews, reviews and reports focusing on contemporary independent cinema, especially the Brazilian, since 2013. He is a member of the Brazilian Association of Film Critics (Abraccine) and is now developing a master’s research about curatorship in film festivals in Communication/Audiovisual at the Anhembi Morumbi University.

Bruno Galindo

Bruno Galindo is a student of Image and Sound at Universidade Federal de São Carlos, and also a film critic, curator and teacher, having collaborated to ChicPop, Cinefestivais and Open Session websites. He also curated the film series I’ll Be Because We Were, Black Aesthetics and for the Kinoforum Brazilian short film festival.

Lorenna Rocha

Born in Recife, Pernambuco, Lorenna Rocha is a student of History at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. She has been working since 2017 in the field of cultural criticism, focusing on cinema and theater. In 2018, she participated of the Janela Crítica workshop at the XI Recife International Film Festival – Janela de Cinema. At her internship at the Pernambuco Electoral Justice Memory Center (TRE-PE), she’s the organizer of the Cineclube TRE, where she uses audiovisual as a pedagogical tool to insert and debate cross-cutting issues in school curricula. Her research is related to the topics Negritude, Decoloniality and Brazilian Dramaturgy. As a black woman, she believes writing is one way to break the tradition of silence imposed upon black bodies.

Raquel Morais

Raquel Morais is a programmer and film critic. She lives in London and works at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) as part of the Institute’s film programming and distribution team. Recently she completed a master’s degree in Film Programming and Curating at the Birkbeck College, London, where she is part of the Essay Film Festival team. She has worked in cinema since 2014. She was an assistant to Portuguese producer Paulo Branco, worked as a research assistant at the MoMA Film Department, as an intern at the Cinemateca Portuguesa. She has articles published in Film Commentary, IndieWire, À Pala de Walsh, A Quarta Parede and Life Form. Her research interests include the links between cinema and other arts, the essay film, film archives, and the relationships between reality and fiction in documentary cinema.

Chissana Magalhães

Chissana Magalhães is a journalist and writer, living in the city of Praia, Cabo Verde, where she works, currently as a freelancer. She was a journalist and chronicler for the newspaper A Semana, where she kept a column about cinema, produced a radio program about cinema and was a member of the Plateau – International Praia Film Festival jury for two years. Most recently, she collaborated on the pre-production of the documentary film Woman (official premiere in 2020) by the same team as the award-winning Humans.

Taiani Mendes

Member of Elviras – Collective of Critical Women of Cinema, currently collaborator of the site Cenas de Cinema, having collaborated to the AdoroCinema website as well. She holds a Bachelor of Social Communication / Cinema (PUC-Rio), and is a student of Art History (UERJ). She is also a poet.