I started my artistic path in 1962, as an actor and author of plays staged in the streets of Rio de Janeiro by the Centro Popular de Cultura (Popular Center of Culture), but when this activity was banned following the 1964 military coup I redirected my creativity to cinema, conceiving short documentaries with painters and musicians from my artistic scene.
In 1968 I was married actress Odete Lara, and created for her my first feature, COPACABANA ME ENGANA (Copacabana Is Mine). The project was inspired by what I viewed from my window when I still lived in the neighbourhood, a film about my crazy friends, my drunken pranks, my family dramas, my relationship with an older woman, a film inspired by the Nouvelle Vague, a film about a world that I knew so well that its on screen realism enthralled the public.
Smoking a lot with my buddies, I began to imagine all the unseen violence that permitted my high and decided that my next film would be a bloody fable about the struggle for power in a group of marijuana dealers.
Thrilled with the great reception, I started to dream of my second feature, A CANGACEIRA ELETRONICA (The Electronic Hoodlum), a fierce musical confrontation between the hippie rock music of the ‘70s and the roots music of the Brazilian backlands. With sets and costumes created by Hélio Oiticica, one of the most important Brazilian artists of last century, this very vanguardist project was unable to find a producer and I postponed it.
In the early ‘70s marijuana sprang from the slums to the artistic milieu. Smoking a lot with my buddies, I began to imagine all the violence that permitted my high and decided that my next film would be a bloody fable about the struggle for power in a group of marijuana dealers, leading to their total extermination.
COPACABANA ME ENGANA was a film about a world that I knew very well, but as I was not so familiar with the drug underworld I invited the playwright Plínio Marcos, who had written two wonderful plays about marginality, to develop with me the plot of the film.
When Marcos suggested that the head of the marijuana dealers could be inspired by a gay bandit he had met, nicknamed “Rainha Diaba” (Queen Devil), I loved the idea. I transported the Queen to the ferocious underworld of Rio de Janeiro and, to create the visual style I imagined, invited conceptual artist Angelo de Aquino to design the queer, pop, and kitsch look of the film.
And everything went ahead when, enthralled by the success of COPACABANA ME ENGANA, director Roberto Farias decided to produce the film. So, in 1973, I was ready for this adventure of imagination and creative freedom, thrilling for all the guys and dolls that invented with me this rebellious and marginal film.
Antonio Carlos da Fontoura
