THREE SUMMERS A film by Sandra Kogut SYNOPSIS very December, between Christmas and New Year, EEdgar and Marta host a lavish family celebration at their luxurious summer house by the beach. In 2015 all seems well, despite some tense phone calls and a guest wearing an ankle monitor. In 2016 the annual party is abruptly cancelled. In 2017, their lives are turned upside down. hat happens to the invisible people living in the orbit Wof the rich and powerful when these lives collapse? Through the gaze of an employee and a forgotten elderly father, both victims of the neoliberal nightmare, we see a portrait of contemporary Brazil just before the tragedy of 2018. The signs were all there, but we didn’t know how to read them. INTERVIEW WITH SANDRA KOGUT TELL US HOW THE IDEA OF accustomed to following breaking myself: what happens to all those THIS FILM CAME ABOUT political developments as if people in the daily orbit of the they were a daily soap opera, in rich and powerful when their In the last few years we have episodes. Only now, they were lives suddenly crumble? What are witnessed in Brazil a number of taking place in real time. the consequences for domestic very intense political dramas. workers when their employers What happens to It is commonly said – only half Three Summers arose from my land in jail? all those people in jokingly – that if until recently desire to engage with what was Brazilians used to know by currently happening in Brazil. But WHY DOES THE FILM TAKE the daily orbit of the heart the names of every soccer as in other films I have made, my PLACE ACROSS A SERIES OF player on the national team, this approach is oblique, focused on SUMMERS? rich and powerful common knowledge now has been the characters we rarely saw in the transferred to the names of the news, the ones that nobody was I chose to set the entire story when their lives eleven Supreme Court judges. talking about. In the sensational always during the summer stories we were hearing every because this is a time of the suddenly crumble? Live broadcasts of court day these characters would be year when tensions are more decisions, spectacular arrests the extras, or they would be off acute and everything seems – the entire country became screen, often invisible. I asked more delirious. The light is too WITH INTERVIEW SANDRA KOGUT bright, the sounds are also felt that the episodic of-the-art helicopter. At too loud, the heat is often structure of setting the times, when we were doing excessive and storms are story always during this last location, it felt like we were apocalyptic. And because week of the year would be entering into a science in the southern hemisphere a good way of pushing the fiction set. the summer takes place in audience to reflect on all December and January, all the moments we actually WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO this becomes even more don’t see. I personally like MAKE A FICTION FILM intense during the last when movies use ellipsis as A B O U T S O M E T H I N G week of the year when on a narrative device. THAT WAS STILL SO top of everything else we FRESH? also have Christmas, with Finally, the intensity of its family dramas, joys and summer somehow finds a While researching the sorrows. And immediately perfect counterpoint in the locations, it felt at times afterwards we have the remarkably ubiquitous and as if we were working on celebration of the New Year, exaggeratedly luxurious a documentary film. The with its promises for change b e a c h s i d e v a c a t i o n situations we encountered – and better moments. It’s a complexes, with their huge locked houses whose owners very particular time and villas where everyone had just fled, disoriented this exacerbation seemed is trying to show off the employees, documents to echo pretty well the greenest grass, the biggest listing sizeable debts left intensity of the successive mansion, the most powerful accidentally on desks – so crises in the country. I yacht and the latest state- many things were directly WITH INTERVIEW SANDRA KOGUT in dialogue with the film we always worked in my films WHAT SIGNS? were in the process of making. to trouble the boundaries Sometimes an employee in between documentary and For example, in the film everyone one of these luxury condos fiction. And in the end, – poor and rich alike – talks would utter a sentence that what matters is to explore about money all the time. There was already in the script, everything through what are are hardly any other values. Due without realizing it. In fact, in essentially human issues. to greed or despair, there is a order to get permissions, we It is quite fascinating to general atmosphere of “every had to be really discreet about approach reality while it is still man for himself”: they are all the subject of the film, since fresh, occurring right in front dealing with the neoliberal once they heard what the of our eyes, although of course dream, the idea of taking film was about many places it is also risky. We shot the film advantage of all opportunities, did not want to be associated just prior to the 2018 Brazilian whatever these might be. The with this kind of a story. We presidential elections, which – only character that comes from had trouble getting shooting as many know – resulted in the a more humanistic background, permits more than once. coming to power of a far-right for instance, the old father – Certain people would only candidate. A few months later who loves dust covered books speak to us anonymously, or it became clear that the film that no one else wants – can in a low voice. was a portrait of the moment no longer find a place in this I find it so interesting when “just before”, a catalogue of transformed world. He has fiction and reality overlap – it some of the elements that led become an anachronism. I think keeps the film alive. One can to this fateful shift. Watching this says a lot about our current use reality as a laboratory the film, one can see that the moment. for lines and situations. I’ve signs were all there ... WITH INTERVIEW SANDRA KOGUT TELL US ABOUT YOUR went very fast and at the is so incredibly talented but, WORK WITH THE CAST same time with a very special as an extremely well-known energy – a sort of productive media personality, she only This was my first feature in edginess – that was essential rarely makes films. We have which most of the characters for this film. Everyone was so been friends and have worked were played by professional fully devoted to the project together for over thirty years. actors. In my previous that they delivered some In fact, Three Summers is the fiction films I worked mainly amazing performances despite second film that I have made with either non-professional difficult conditions. It was a with her as the star: almost 25 actors or with a mixed cast, set full of laughter and tears years ago I directed another which involved conducting - a really wonderful collective film entitled Lá e Cá (Here and long workshops with a lot of experience. There) that also showcased preparation. But this time it her creative genius. Making was completely different. I I was very fortunate to be able another film together was a think it is important to leave to work with such a wonderful longstanding wish on both of one’s comfort zone and that cast. Some of the actors had our parts, but I had to find the each film has a mode of been in previous films of mine, right project. Working with production that is unique to others I had long observed her again on Three Summers that particular film. This was and admired on stage and on was just wonderful. the first time I had to work so screen. This is especially true quickly, with very little time to of Regina Casé who is such an prepare and shoot. Everything extraordinary actress. She BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA KOGUT Born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sandra Kogut has (ZKM), Hungarian Film Week. Her first feature also lived and worked in France and the USA. Mutum premiered at the Cannes Film Festival FILMOGRAPHY She started her career as an artist creating (Directors’ Fortnight) and went on to numerous 2019 TRÊS VERÕES performance pieces and installations, before festivals including Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam (Three Summers) (Brazil / France, feature, 94 min) turning to documentary and fiction films. In the and others, receiving more than twenty awards 2015 CAMPO GRANDE early 1990s she directed the Parabolic People worldwide. (Brazil / France, feature, 100 min) project in six major cities (Rio de Janeiro, 2011 DIARY OF A CRISIS Tokyo, Dakar, New York, Paris and Moscow). During a year in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD (USA / Brazil, documentary, 52 min) Her work, which hovers at the border between Künstlerprogramm in 2011, she wrote the script 2007 MUTUM (Brazil / France, feature, 95 min) documentary and fiction, has been featured in of her feature film Campo Grande (2015) which many venues, including the Museum of Modern she has shot in Brazil. Campo Grande premiered 2003 PASSAGERS D’ORSAY (Passengers of Orsay) (France, documentary, 52 min) Art and the Guggenheim Museum (New York), at the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win multiple international awards.