Below is an interview with the director, Cao Hamburger

Despite not being autobiographical, The Year My Parents Went On Vacation contains a lot of elements from your early years, your memories, doesn’t it?

The film isn’t autobiographical, but the screenplay does contain a few of my memories, as well as that of Cláudio (Galperin, with whom the director wrote the screenplay and developed its first treatment) as well as other people from our team. Pieces of our memories are there. We all worked in tune with our memories. Beginning with the screenplay through to the art, photography direction, etc.

Would you agree that this is a film which doesn’t fit in easily with the definitions used for the genre?

Yes, it isn’t a genre film. But neither is it a difficult film, it is involving, but ethereal in a certain way. I think that this is one of its interesting factors. If I were to define it, I’d say it was a movie about absence, about solitude and how to make the most of it. A film about overcoming obstacles.

In a way, is it also a film about exile, about vulnerability?

Without getting into much detail, it is a story about a boy exiled in his own country. A boy who after learning to get along in a new environment, is exiled once again. This facet of the movie deals in a way with the cycles which exist in our lives, the way he learns that life is made up of cycles; that nothing is forever. Mauro says to himself: I came here alone and I managed to survive. It is a rite of passage, a time of discovery. He learns that life isn’t controllable, that it isn’t like a solitary game of button soccer, where you can repeat the plays, control the results...

And the choice of a Jewish community to serve as the backdrop for Mauro’s drama?

For me, the movie deals with the possibilities of different ethnic groups living together as well, something which is exemplified in the scene of the soccer game between Italians, Jews, and Blacks. It isn’t the main element of the movie, but it is one of its strong points, along with another strong point in the film which is the fact that Mauro is taken in by the Jewish community, by religious people and is not indoctrinated, not forced to “become Jewish”. Mauro’s relation to the things around him, his grandfather’s apartment, is another interesting point. Just like our ancestors’ stories are part of our stories, his grandfather’s apartment, the different culture is now his, becoming a part of Mauro’s life.

Why did you choose the goalie figure?

The film isn’t about soccer, but the analogy with the solitary goalie is nice. I used to be a goalie and I felt it myself. The goalie is the odd guy on the team, the only one who catches the ball in his hands, who doesn’t attack, doesn’t make goals, defends, who sometimes becomes a hero, but a player who can’t fail, because if he does, he becomes one of the bad guys. It isn’t easy being a goalie. There’s this saying in Brazil which goes: the goalie’s life is so hard that not even the grass grows where he plays.

You have a lot of experience directing kids. How was it directing Michel Joelsas (Mauro) and Daniela Piepszyk (Hanna)?

Michel and Daniela are incredible. Patrícia Faria, our casting director came back in a daze after her first visit to their schools. She couldn’t believe how smart, well-behaved, interested they both were. Michel has incredible timing. He works in a frequency which helped him get through the whole movie. He is in 99% of the scenes, but doesn’t weary the spectators because he is always in a very cool, easy-going, cinematographic frequency, with his emotion in his eyes. Daniela is very charismatic and talented. They are both born actors.

Which cinematographic references inspired you the most in making The Year My Parents Went On Vacation?

I have pretty broad cinematographic influences. I like almost all good movies, which serve as food for thought, coming from different styles and genres. I think you could say it is a characteristic of my generation. I’m a big fan of Kubrick, Sergio Leone, Fellini, Spielberg, Chaplin, Kusturica, Japanese films, contemporary Argentine, Wim Wenders, Fernando Meirelles... I’m a big audiovisual mixing pot. But with so many references, I try to find my own style, decanting and researching that which is most personal in different styles and narratives. In this film I was after a more intimate frequency in everything. I tried to conduct the orchestra to play a pianissimo, in all the different segments of the film. In the acting, art direction, in the camera’s language itself, editing, etc. We tried not to stray from the frequency of the story we were telling, the cadence of the emotions that the characters were living. We didn’t want anything in the film to jump out on spectators, to stand out from the rest, to stand out in the story. I think the whole crew understood this and dove headfirst into this universe we were creating.

Yes. It’s in the camera, which isn’t cold and impersonal; it emanates heat to the spectators. There is a certain subjective air which provides the film with a testimonial tone; it’s not a flat camera. This began in Filhos do Carnaval (2006 TV series), in which I also worked with Adriano Goldman (director of photography and camera).

How did you pick the people to work with you in the film?

Well, they say that 90% of the director’s work is choosing his team and cast. I agree with this. I handpicked my crew. I had already worked with most of them before, and those who were with us for the first time caught on really quick. Making films is crew work, and I really like the whole process. And the team has to be as involved as I myself am in the project, as it is together with them that I discover just what the film that we’re going to make is like. And, in an analogy with soccer, I had a first class team and we all played to the same tune. ---

The Lead Years

1970, the year Brazil won the World Cup for the third time. While Brazilians got together to watch their all-star team win the Jules Rimet Cup for their country on television, the dictatorship was loose on the streets of cities throughout Brazil. In the so called “Lead Years”, Brazil was going through the worst years of attempts against civilians’ rights and free expression. The military dictatorship, which began with the coup d’etat in March, 1964, overwhelmed all Brazilians and continued until 1985. To insure the established order and combat what was called corruption and subversion as well as to undermine opposition groups which arose in various regions of the country, the military government used repressive tactics. In the so-called “dictator dungeons”, any resistance was stifled through prison, torture, assassination and exile.

The Bom Retiro District

In the 70’s, the Bom Retiro district was a veritable caldron of ethnic groups and cultures. A true example of the miscegenation so characteristic of São Paulo. Besides the immense Jewish community living in the pleasant neighbourhood, one could find Italian, Greek and Arabian immigrants, and even Brazilians, all peacefully living together. Today, Bom Retiro has lost the majority of its old inhabitants, who passed on their establishments to Korean businessmen and Bolivian immigrants as well, but it still maintains its commercial characteristics and is one of the largest centres for buying and selling clothing apparel in the country, with people coming from all over Brazil to shop there.