L’âge d’or du cinéma

The serie is composed by the three following episodes :

The golden age of the Mexican cinema : Dolores Del Rio

This Mex­i­can story began at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val, in France, in 1946. That year, a Mex­i­can film was awarded the Palme D’or which advised the world of cin­ema and the pub­lic that some­thing had changed in Mex­ico. That film, called “Maria Can­de­laria” had been made by Emilio Fer­nan­dez and the main part was played by Dolores Del Rio. Many in the pub­lic were sur­prised to find out that the superb actress, play­ing a tragic fig­ure, beau­ti­fully filmed by Gabriel Figueroa, was one of the favourite and most exotic actresses in the Amer­i­can cin­ema indus­try .She starred in Raoul Walsh’s and King Vidor’s movies but also played in a large num­ber of musi­cals in the Hol­ly­wood way… The film swept the prizes at many film fes­ti­vals, and Dolores became an icon.

The golden age of the Cuban cinema

In March 1959, will be cre­ated in Havana the ICAIC, the Cuban Insti­tute of Art and Cin­e­mato­graphic Indus­try. It is the first act of the cul­tural pol­icy of the new mode. Dur­ing the ten years which will fol­low, under the aegis of this orga­ni­za­tion the Cuban cin­ema makes incred­i­ble great strides. With the ICAIC, a new gen­er­a­tion of sce­nario writ­ers emerges and is put at the work – of Gutier­rez Alea in Hum­berto Solas — of Alberto Roldan in Julio Gar­cia Espinosa. The films which these young real­iz­ers will make con­cern nei­ther a school, nor of a kind. It acts of a pop­u­lar cin­ema in its gaso­line and its accounts. For­eign real­iz­ers will also come them to work in Havana for this period : Chris Marker, Joris Ivens, Agnes Varda, Armand Gatti will turn to Cuba. It is the his­tory of this excep­tional adven­ture — which lasted eight years — that we will tell in this doc­u­men­tary, inter­fer­ing inter­views and extracts films.

The golden age of the brazilian cinema - Cinema novo

Cinema Novo, born at the end of the 1950’s, ranked Brazilian cinema among the world’s greatest modern productions. Five filmmakers of this period remember this adventure, which gave Brazilian cinema an identity of its own. They recount how, notwithstanding the conservative society, they overcame all financial, technical and political obstacles. They invented a new film expression and created a typical Brazilian cinema. As a conclusion to the film, two young filmmakers evoke the tremendous influence of Cinema Nova on their generation. The structure of the film relies on the protagonists’ different testimonies. As Cinema Novo did in its time, it is trying to question the links between creation, the history of a country and its society at a particular moment. Through the example of Brazilian movies the film also tries to underline how universal this question is.

Les autres épisodes de cette série :