Brazil and Cultural Diversity: Modernism in Brazilian Cinema

The Department of Modern Languages at the University of Birmingham and the Brazilian Leitorado programme of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with support of the Embassy of Brazil in London and the Birmingham Brazil Forum, are delighted to present a series of events to celebrate Brazil and Cultural Diversity. 

“A Hora da Estrela” film screening (based on Clarice Lispector’s novel)

Hosts:

Dr. Courtney Campbell (Deptartment of History, University of Birmingham)

Dr. Margarida McMurry (Department of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham)

The film A Hora da Estrela (Suzana Amaral, 1985) is an adaptationof the homonymous novel by Clarice Lispector, published in 1977. The story follows  the path of Macabéa (Marcélia Cartaxo), a 19-year-old northeastern migrant, orphan of father and mother, who works as a typist in São Paulo. In this city, she shares a room in a boarding house with three other girls, all named Maria. Romantic, dreaming about the ideal happiness in marriage, Macabéa lives a simple life, surviving on the basic wage she receives. Unable to see malevolence in others and to reflect on her condition as a migrant, she is the alienated character for whom everything seems natural. Alone, lost in her daydreams, she lives the day to day absorbing the hardships of a precarious social condition, waiting for a great love, but, of course, immersed in the monotony that starts from early in the morning, when she listen to a radio station that repeatedly informs the hours and offers listeners fun facts on various subjects.