A SHORT BREAK FROM QUARANTINE WITH KUNDURA SİNEMA

Douwe Dijkstra’s award-winning Green Screen Gringo (2016), which has picked up prizes at many film festivals, turns its camera on the chaos of the streets of São Paulo in Brazil, where the political atmosphere became turbulent as President Dilma Rousseff’s name was linked to corruption scandals. Seeking to understand the country’s political tensions by focusing on people in the street, the film adopts an experimental style. The visibility of the crew member carrying the green screen, which could be called the film’s hallmark, constantly reminds viewers that documentaries, too, which are believed to reflect reality directly, present a reality filtered by a film crew. Moreover, by placing people into different social contexts through the games it plays with the image, Green Screen Gringo makes us question how decisively the many manufactured objects around us, from clothing to spaces, shape our thoughts about people, as if echoing Guy Debord’s words: “The spectacle is the faithful reflection of the production of things, and the unfaithful objectification of the producers.”

Alper Yıldırım (www.altyazi.net)

To view the original film, click here!