Jean Charles
2009/ Brazil & UK/ 93mins/Dir. by Henrique Goldman / Screenplay Henrique Goldman & Marcelo Starobinas
Join us for a special screening, in collaboration with Colourful Radio, of this award- winning film based on the true story of Jean Charles de Menezes followed by a Q&A with the Brazilian director.
A Brazilian girl comes to live with her cousin in London. He has already carved out a life for himself there; she hopes to do the same. It is 2005, a year in which the city will be traumatised by terrorist attacks. Both of them will be caught in the crossfire.
Jean Charles was one of the top grossing Brazilian productions last year, when it was released in Brazil and has achieved critical acclaim at festivals including the Toronto and Miami Film Festivals.
The Story
Vivian, a beautiful but insecure Brazilian teenager, arrives in the UK under the wing of her favourite cousin Jean Charles de Menezes. He is fun-loving, outgoing, a free spirit. He’s been in London for three years and he loves the city. At first, Vivian struggles to adapt to her new life but, helped by Jean Charles, she finds her place in London and a new life unfolds for her. But her dreams are shattered by the tragic events of the summer 2005 in London.
Plus Q&A with Director Henrique Goldman
“I was not interested in the politics surrounding the case. I was interested in Jean Charles as a guy and how his death affected the people who loved him. From the beginning this was always going to be a film about outsiders. I saw it as an opportunity to tell another layer of this tragic story that nobody knew about, which is the life of Brazilians abroad”. Henrique Goldman
‘Henrique Goldman’s sensitively handled drama looks beyond the headlines to paint a portrait of the man and, to a lesser degree, the climate of fear which gripped London in the summer of 2005.’
‘While its final passages seethe with proper outrage, director Henrique Goldman’s moving docudrama is no liberal harangue but rather an affectionate celebration of a man who, as inhabited by Selton Mello, all but leaps off the screen with life.’
A screening in collaboration with COLOURFUL