"It's Not a Friendship" - Eduardo Coutinho

Casting From Real Life

; Eduardo Coutinho - It's Not a Friendship
"I make films about the act of filming. It's always about that," says Eduardo Coutinho the accomplished Brazilian documentarian renowned for his minimalist style and remarkable interviews. Countinho's unadorned documentaries create striking portaits of ordinary people. His work has been an ongoing and deeping mediation on the act of listening and the act of filming, focusing on the unique moment, the word, that is born of the exchange between subject and filmmaker. Coutinho started his career in fiction (he was the screenwriter in Dona flor and Her Two Husband), worked many years as a journalist and dedicated himself to docuementary since the 1980s. He was the 2007 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Gramado Film Festival.

"I don't have romantic illusions of becoming friends of with my subjects. It's a lie. I never see them again. I spend an hour with them, a year later I call them for a pre-screening and never see them again. If I run into them, I say "Hi" But It's over. Why stay friends? Why? I don't want their daily routine. Routine is awful. Documentary is a lie. Documentary is a summing up. The most wonderful people I've filmed with, if I spent 48 hours with them, I'd go crazy. It's pure romanticism, this idea. Some people are saint. Flaherty spent 20 years in Siberia...in Canada also. An anthropologist might spend 7 years somewhere. Not me. I do some research. I have an hour of contact, I invite them to the film. "Like it?" Ciao. I'm enormously grateful to them, but it would be a lie if we continued to be friends."