Um breve respiro democrático

In Esdras Baptista's film archives, kept at his home for decades, one can feel the fervor of those who believed in a new tomorrow. Filmed in Brazil in the early 1960s, in the heat of a libertarian political movement, the filmmaker's images materialize the incandescence of collective desires at the historic moment of their emergence. Utopia, though unattainable, is never a mere abstraction. A force that mobilizes actions and feelings, it constitutes the impetus necessary for human existence.

From a screening of "Antes, o Verão" (1968) in the Cinematheque of the Museum of Modern Artes of Rio de Janeiro, in 2005, "Reencontro com o Cinema" follows the rediscovery of the life and works of filmmaker Gerson Tavares, who hadn't worked with cinema in 30 years.